
Class. 7iT:: 

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CflRfRIGHT DEPOSrC 



A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
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MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

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A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 



AN INTRODUCTION TO METAPHYSICS 



BY 
JOHN ELOF BOODIN 

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, CARLETON COLLEGE 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1916 

AU rights reserved 






COPTKIGHT, 1916, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and dectrotyped. Published November, 1916. 



H-- 



^ 



Norfsooti Tfimn 

J. 8. CuBhlriK Co. — Berwick A Smith Co. 

Norwood, MiisB., U.S.A. 



DEC 28 1916 
«)CI.A45;{;5.")7 



MY FRIEND AND TEACHER 
JOSIAH EOYCE 



PREFACE 

This volume on metaphysics is the sequel of a volume on the 
theory of knowledge, entitled *^ Truth and Reality/^ which was 
published in 1911. The two volumes furnish a survey of the 
field of general philosophy from the point of view of pragmatic 
realism. This attitude which the author has been champion- 
ing for several years is an attempt to apply scientific method 
to philosophic problems. The term pragmatic is used in the 
sense which was first advocated by C. S. Peirce, and which is 
defined by the author in his own terms in "Truth and Reality. '* 
As applied to metaphysics the pragmatic method means that 
we must judge the nature of reality, in its various grades and 
complexities, by the consequences to the reaHzation of human 
purposes, instead of by a priori assumptions. Some may pre- 
fer the older adjectives of "empirical" or "critical"; but 
these terms seem definitely associated with certain historical 
doctrines, and a new term seems to be preferable in designating 
the scientific tendency of to-day. There is need in every age 
of retranslating the perennial problems of philosophy into terms 
of living human interest; and the author hopes in a meas- 
ure to further this movement at the present time through these 
volumes. In "A ReaHstic Universe" the author has tried to 
make vital the fundamental problems of metaphysics in terms 
of our present thought-world, without the cant of the past, but 
with a deep sense of indebtedness to the masters of all time. 
While the book is intended primarily for the philosophic stu- 
dent, the aim has been to make the style as clear and simple 
as the problems would permit. In the use of scientific material, 
an effort has been made to find sources which would be intel- 
ligible to the layman rather than to make an appearance of 
erudition. Some portions, such as the introductory chapter 
and part five on Form, may be of special interest to the general 
reader. 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

The work as it now stands, imperfect as it may be in execu- 
tion, has had a long history. The oldest portion is that re- 
lating to time. The author's theory of time was first outUned 
in a paper on that subject, written for Professor Royce's Semi- 
nary in 1897-1898. It found fuller statement in his doctor's 
thesis on "The Concept of Time" in 1899; and was further 
expounded in a monograph entitled ''Time and Reahty," 
pubUshed in the Psychological Review monograph series, No. 
26, in 1904. A brief statement in the Journal of Philosophy, 
Psychology and Scientific Methods in 1905 has been partly made 
use of in this book. As there has been no material change in 
the author's attitude since the pubhcation of the monograph, 
the reader may be referred to this for supplementary treatment. 
Preliminary studies of the concepts of Space, 1906, Con- 
sciousness, 1908, and Energy, 1908, have been published in 
the Journal of Philosophy, etc. While the main view-point re- 
mains in each case, the material has been thoroughly restated 
and should be judged by its present form. The same apphes 
to the article, ''The Ought and ReaHty," which appeared in 
the International Journal of Ethics, 1907, and which in the 
present volume has been restated under the title "Form and 
the Ought." Other papers which have been made use of, in 
whole or in part, are: "Do Things Exist?" 1912, and "In- 
dividual and Social Minds," 1913, from the Journal of Phi- 
losophy, etc.; "Knowing Things" from the Philosophical Re- 
view, 1911; "Knowing Selves," Psychological Review, 1912; 
"The Identity of the Ideals" from the International Journal of 
Ethics, 1912; "A Rehabihtation of Teleology," under the 
title of " Teleological Idealism," from the Harvard Theological 
Review, 1912; "Pragmatic Realism — the Five Attributes," 
under the title of "The Five Attributes" from Mind, 1913; 
and "The Divine Fivefold Truth" from the Moiiist, 1911. 
The author wishes to express his appreciation to these journals 
for their cooperation and encouragement, which have meant a 
great deal to a man working in comparative isolation. The 
work, however, is in no sense a compilation of articles, but 
was early conceived as a systematic unity, though he wished 
the advantage of the objectivity and time perspective furnished 
by preUminary pubhcation, as well as the incentive that comes 



PREFACE IX 

from feeling a part of the social consciousness with the informal 
reactions thus made possible. In this connection, he wishes 
to express also his appreciation to the Western Philosophical 
Association, before which many of the preHminary studies were 
first read. 

As regards his indebtedness to other workers in the field, the 
book itself will have to bear testimony. Among philosophers, 
his indebtedness is greatest to the standard masters, not only 
because of their intrinsic merit, but because they have been 
most accessible. In all things speculative, we must still sit 
at the feet of the Greek masters. His first systematic training 
in philosophy the author received under the tutelage of the 
great German ideaHsts, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, thanks to 
his first guide in philosophy, James Seth. From the British 
empiricists he has learned, he hopes, a homely regard for the 
facts of experience. Of French thinkers, he owes most to 
Poincare, whose phenomenal grasp of science and transparent 
genius place him in a class by himself among philosophers of 
science. Of the author's immediate environment, he hopes 
there may appear in this work something of the inspiration 
of the great leader in American philosophy, William James, 
and of its recent laureate, Josiah Royce. Nor could one 
escape the vitalizing influence in our country of its great teacher, 
John Dewey, and the Chicago School. When the author was 
working out his theory of time, he did not have the good for- 
tune to be acquainted with the brilliant work of Bergson on 
that concept. Not even WilHam James seemed conscious of 
Bergson's contribution in the later '90's. While the author's 
theory agrees with that of Bergson in aiming to estabUsh the 
reahty of time, both the fundamental intuition and the method 
are different. The concept as set forth in this volume, and in 
previous discussions, must be regarded, therefore, as a different 
concept. In the later revision of the work, the author has 
been stimulated by the recent realistic discussions, both in Great 
Britain and America. Since the first draft of this work was 
completed in 1912, and most of it antedates the movement some- 
times called "the new realism," perhaps more properly called 
analytical realism, its development has been comparatively 
independent of this movement, and has Httle in common with 



X PREFACE 

it either in spirit or method. As between the extreme anti- 
intellectualism of Bergsonism, and the extreme intellectualism 
of analytical realism, pragmatic realism steers a middle course. 
While maintaining, as against analytical realism, that reality 
is more than a congeries of abstract logical entities, it insists 
as against intuitionism on the relevancy of thought to reality. 
Only thus could thought furnish valid leadings in our practical 
and theoretical conduct. This attitude is in line with com- 
mon sense and empirical science. 

The present work does not aim to be a compendium of cur- 
rent literature. There are books which serve this purpose in 
an admirable way. It must be judged rather as a personal 
reaction to the permanent problems of human experience, for, 
whether we will it or no, our systems are after all personal re- 
actions. If they are sincere and thorough, we may hope that 
they will further the total movement of truth. The time seems 
peculiarly auspicious for such an attempt at synthesis. While 
there has been much of suggestion and inspiration in recent 
discussion, the constructive efforts have been disappointing. 
This is due, no doubt, to the magnitude of the task. In the 
complexity of modern thought and life, we cannot perhaps hope 
for an Aristotle. What could once be accomphshed by in- 
dividual genius, must now be carried out piecemeal by the 
interstimulation and supplementation of a collective mind. 
The author will be satisfied if he can count as even an infinites- 
imal part in this infinite task. As this work has grown up for 
the most part on the western prairies, may it reflect the homely 
sanity of the great West. 

NORTHFIELD, MINNESOTA 

September 14, 1916 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGK 

Introduction. The Meaning of Metaphysics . xiii-xxii 
I. Perspective. The Divine Five-fold Truth . 3-12 



PAKT I. ENEEGY AND THINGS 

11. Being — Matter and the Absolute . . . 15-32 

III. Pragmatic Energism 33-61 

IV. Do Things Exist? 62-73 

V. Knowing Things 74-91 

VI. Knowing Things (Continued) 92-112 



PAET II. CONSCIOUSNESS AND MIND 

VII. The Concept op Consciousness .... 115-133 

VIII. The Concept of Consciousness (Continued) . . 134-150 

IX. Knowing Minds 151-163 

X. Knowing Minds (Continued) 164-190 

XI. Individual and Social Minds 191-204 



PAET III. SPACE AND EEALITY 

XII. Psychological and Geometric Space . . . 207-224 
XIII. The Nature of Real Space 225-247 



PAET IV.. TIME AND EEALITY 

XIV. The Nature op Time 251-282 

XV. Time and the Problematic 283-303 

xi 



XU TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PART V. FORM AND REALITY 

CIIAPTSB PAGE 

XVL The Identity of tile Ideals .... 307-325 

XVIL Form and the Ought 326-359 

XVin. Teleological Idealism 300-384 

XIX. Retrospect — The Five Attributes . . . 385-404 



INTRODUCTION 
The Meaning of Metaphysics 

The Place of Metaphysics. — In this age of narrow special- 
ization and absorbing immediate interests, it is well that we 
should try to recover what Plato called " the love of the whole- 
ness of things, both human and divine/^ By doing so, we shall 
gain greater insight into our special problems and greater 
sanity in practical Hfe. For philosophy is merely sustained 
thinking about the things that are of vital and permanent con- 
cern to the human race in the whirl of circumstance in which 
we find ourselves. 

There are many reasons for the disrepute into which the 
noblest of sciences has fallen in our own day. One of these is 
the bias of words. Metaphysics has been confused with ob- 
scurantism and occultism ; and professional philosophers are 
in a large degree to blame for this. They have been victims 
of a traditional vocabulary which once was significant in the 
history of thought, but which has ceased to be relevant to 
our special matrix of problems. The tendency has been to 
substitute counters for things, antique phrases for clear and 
distinct ideas. Whenever philosophy has been vital, it has 
always followed close upon the heels of science and human in- 
terest. It was so that metaphysics originated as a science in 
the days of Aristotle. It is so that it has maintained itself 
ever since, whether translated into the theological atmosphere 
of the Middle Ages, or into the scientific spirit of the age of 
Descartes and Locke. To be vital to-day, metaphysics must 
clarify our own scientific and social problems. 

Another reason is to be found in our narrow emphasis on the 
practical. The most dangerous sophist in any age, as Plato 
pointed out, is the pubHc sophist, — the prevaihng emphasis 
of the social mind. To-day, the emphasis is on immediate 
material results rather than on the calm contemplation of the 

xiii 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

meaning of things. We are bent on producing weather rather 
than on examining its whither. We seem to have raised weather 
enough ; and if we persist there will be nothing much to con- 
template but ruins. Bitter after-reflection may teach us that 
the question is not merely of efficiency ; but to what end ? 

Not the least important reason is the slovenliness and laziness 
in our present day thinking, which, particularly in our country, 
is the outcome of our new education. This is rapidly making 
this generation incapable of sustained reflection. Religion has 
become a matter of sentimentalism instead of the systematic 
interpretation that characterized the Middle Ages and the 
Reformation. In philosophy we have substituted intuition 
for serious reflection; in science, narrow specialization for 
comprehensive perspectives. There is danger that we may 
prove unfit for the task of meeting the great social problems of 
the day, which will require the most stubborn sort of thought 
for their solution. In such an age, we need to hearken back to 
Plato's warning that things can only be set right when philoso- 
phers are kings; and philosophers are men who can think in 
terms of the whole. Indeed, the great masters, whether in the 
world of thought or of action, have always been philosophers, 
even if they have not always been conscious of the fact. 

Though we may neglect metaphysics, we cannot get away 
from it. Being of the very nature of reflective thought, it can 
say: "When me you fly, I am the wings." Metaphysics, as 
Comenius pointed out, begins at the mother's knee. "Thus, 
from the moment he begins to speak, the child comes to know 
himself, and by his daily experience, certain general and ab- 
stract expressions; he comes to comprehend the meaning of 
the words something, nothing, thus, otherwise, where, similar^ 
different; and what are generalizations and the categories 
expressed by these words but the rudiments of metaphysics?'* 
We are thus introduced by social suggestion to the distinctions 
of things and qualities, mind and matter, cause and eff'ect, 
space and time, the conscious and unconscious. We are taught 
to construct a scale of values and to believe in a world of ideals. 
Our common sense and science are shot through with meta- 
physical concepts. The difference between such metaphysics 
and that of the philosophic thinker lies in the degree of thorough- 



INTRODUCTION XV 

ness with which we pursue such matters. It is clear then that 
metaphysics has a permanent claim on human nature. We 
may well agree with Aristotle: ''All the sciences indeed are 
more necessary than this, but none is better." 

It must be said, too, that in spite of the shallowness of our 
thinking, there is, in our age, a strong feehng for ideals, a sound 
faith in mehoration which persists undismayed in the baffing 
complexity of our problems, and which furnishes the one ray 
of hope in a great international tragedy — a promise of better 
things. It is at heart an idealistic age — an age of reconstruc- 
tion, of profound awakening to human claims. This should 
give philosophy a new opportunity in the building out of the 
meaning of life. 

The Presuppositions of Metaphysics. — A few years ago it was 
fashionable to advertise a philosophy without presuppositions. 
This would indeed be radical empiricism; but it would be 
suicidal at the outset, since to philosophize we must think; 
and thought has its own presuppositions which are implied in 
all its procedure, whether metaphysical, or more narrowly 
scientific. Metaphysics, as a systematic treatment of ex- 
perience, implies logic. It assumes that there are valid rules 
of thought, that we can arrive at common understandings. 

But metaphysics, as a final evaluation of experience, implies 
more than the laws of thought. It implies a faith in their 
fitness or relevancy to our world. We must trust the instru- 
ment at the outset. The mute faith in the possibility of knowl- 
edge is the very spring of the process. This is fundamentally 
an attitude of the will. But it is a constructive attitude, and 
justifies itseK in the progress of human experience. To criti- 
cize the instrument in the abstract is at best a futile task. 
Some philosophers have concluded, from certain a priori con- 
siderations, that thought is contradictory or inadequate. Kant 
finds it suspicious that thought is equipped with certain cate- 
gories at the outset. These seem somehow arbitrary; they 
carry on their face no guaranty that they fit into the empirical 
structure of things. The British agnostics have noted the 
relational character of thought, and have assumed for some 
traditional or temperamental reason that reahty is the un- 
conditioned or non-relational. But the fruitfulness of such 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

thinkers as Kant and Spencer lies, not in their a priori assump- 
tions, but in the contribution which they have made to the 
correlation of the values of experience by means of the instru- 
ment which they mistrusted. Somehow, the laws of thought 
must be the laws of things if we are going to attempt a science 
of reality. Thought and things are part of one evolving matrix, 
and cannot ultimately conflict. 

Hegel here shows himself a saner pragmatist. The cate- 
gories of thought must be tested by their success in actual use. 
If the values of experience can be correlated and unified in 
terms of the categories of thought, then thought requires no 
other credentials. Its validity is guaranteed by the outcome, 
not by any a priori test, which is a mere hewing in vacuo. 
We may object to Hegel's own formulation of the fundamental 
concepts; we may not share his confidence in the abstractly 
logical character of the process thus to be manipulated. His 
triadic relations may appear arbitrary and stilted. His sys- 
tem may seem too much Uke the staging of abstract categories, 
and as lacking real movement and zest. But that, after all, 
is because he fails as measured in terms of his own criterion — 
the success of thought in realizing its concrete leading from part 
to part, from corridor to corridor within the complex structure 
of reality. The real world is more fluent and complex and 
baffling and tragic than Hegel's logic with all its interesting 
paradoxes could comprehend. His faith, however, is invincible 
and immortal. Let us give thought a fair field at the outset. 
Let us not discredit the instrument because it has a character 
of its own. It could not be an instrument otherwise. The 
universe in its own selective movement forged it, in the long 
ages, for just such a world as ours and such needs as ours. The 
possibility of its conquests are but dimly foreshadowed as yet. 

The important thing is that our concepts shall work; that 
they shall blend into the concrete process of life for which they 
are made, and out of which they are selected. If they are 
relevant, they cannot be arbitrary, — not "appearances" in 
the sense of unreal, even though they are at best abstract 
aspects of reality. They are not only convenient tools, but 
part and parcel of the world which they enable us to predict, 
use, and appreciate. To criticize thought independently of its 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

function in experience is as senseless as would be a baby's 
criticism of its fitness for walking by an abstract examination 
of its anatomy. The impulse to walk and the development 
of the anatomy are part of a single movement. We learn to 
walk by following the impulse to walk ; and we learn the nature 
of things by repeated efforts to use the instrument of thought. 
In each case, the implied faith is justified by its success. 

While we must have faith in the relevancy of thought, we 
must not prejudice the outcome of thought's experiment by 
our assumptions. Perhaps it is not true that the object, in 
order to make a difference to our reflective purposes, must it- 
self be purposive through and through. Perhaps, on the other 
hand, reality is more rational than our ignorance and im- 
patience assumed. Perhaps there are no simple entities, ex- 
cept as we so treat them for our pragmatic purposes. Perhaps 
relations cannot be resolved into either the internal or external 
type exclusively. Perhaps our values may be guaranteed, or 
at any rate h^ve all the guarantee they do have, in a pluraKstic 
and temporal world as well as in an absolutistic and eternal. 
At any rate we must be free to follow the leading of our ex- 
periments. The postulates of thought and the postulate of 
their relevancy seem to be all that are required in so funda- 
mental an inquiry. And these too must be justified by their 
success, for the laws of thought can rise to clearness and dis- 
tinctness only through their use. 

For the dogmatic method, too often applied in matters of 
philosophy, we must substitute the empirical or critical method 
— the method which the special sciences have proved so fruit- 
ful in their own domain. It is not the province of metaphysics 
to dictate to reality what it must be, but to discover its funda- 
mental meaning. It is only when pursued in this spirit that 
metaphysics can take rank as a science, and, at least in its 
ideal, as the science of sciences. 

The Function of Metaphysics 

It has been asserted that the acceptance of philosophies has 
nothing to do with their truth, but with their congeniahty to 
people's passions and prejudices. This seems indeed to be 
true to a large extent in our imperfect and uncertain evolution, 



XVUl mTRODUCTION 

where our mutual blindness plays such a large part in the 
acceptance of beliefs. It often seems, in the snail's pace of 
the many, that ideas only gain acceptance after they are an- 
tiquated and then as obstacles to further progress. Thus 
Aristotle is accepted as a dogma to defeat the progress of 
modern science. It would seem that society, by the very 
law of its development, is bound to feed upon the illusions of 
yesterday. Its progress is ever unwilling. It is ever moving 
with its back to the light. It is ever making martyrs of its 
prophets. 

In thus arraigning society, however, we are losing sight of 
the fact that human nature has other claims to satisfy beside 
those of pure truth. The primitive law of society, as of the 
individual, is self-preservation; and to this end it must ever 
watch with jealous care the introduction of new gods. In- 
dividual insight is ever the disturber of the social equihbrium, 
which insists on standardized beliefs. The human Prometheus, 
therefore, must pay the penalty of his profanity in stealing fire 
from heaven. The new claims must be put upon the rack and 
tried out with reference to the other claims of human nature, 
before the social instinct of self-preservation is set at rest. It 
is useless to rail against this law of nature. We are all part of 
it. Our tolerance extends merely to the trivial. When any 
profound revolution is threatened, we agree that it is expedient 
that one man suffer rather than the whole people perish. 

If we were merely logic machines, materialism as a philoso- 
phy would doubtless triumph. The mechanical view has cer- 
tainly the advantage of simpUcity. But the simplest theory 
is not necessarily true. A theory must be sufficient as well as 
simple. It must be capable of harmonizing all the claims. 
And the facts may be richer than materialism, with its mathe- 
matical models, assumes. The universe is not merely a place 
for the play of our logical faculty. It must in some way own 
our other ideal demands. Philosophies must do justice to 
our whole human nature. They must satisfy our emotional 
and volitional nature, as well as our intellectual. And society 
has always regarded logic as secondary to its security and 
happiness. We build philosophies and air castles for the 
spirit, as we build houses for the body, to keep out the blast 



INTRODUCTION xix 

and cold of an unfriendly and fickle cosmic weather. Philosophy- 
has its value in appealing to our sentiments of courage and 
justice, of love and hope, as well as to our sense for fact. When 
we are hit by the blind vicissitudes of fortune, whether the 
scourges of nature in the form of pestilence and famine or the 
human curses of envy, hatred, and mahce, it is well if we can 
say with Socrates : ''No evil can happen to a good man either 
in life or after death." 

And so it is that the agnostics and sceptics, briUiant though 
they may have been, and though the advantage of logic has 
often been on their side, have scarcely counted in the history 
of society. They are the mere curios of the philosophical 
closet. If they have been preserved, it has been only through 
the social indignation and refutation which they have occa- 
sioned. The effective systems of philosophy are tremendous 
affirmations of faith — faith in human society and its under- 
lying ideals. While one set of facts may apparently be as true 
as another, some facts are worth more than others in the economy 
of human life. Since truth is a program of life, such emphases 
as open up the future, as furnish the largest scope of activity, 
naturally prevail in human interest. Hence, idealism will 
always triumph over materialism, even though the latter may 
be more economic ; for philosophy exists in part for ennobling 
life, for enhancing the prospect, not merely as the echo of a 
day that is gone, of a life's sun which has known its setting. 

Idealistic systems have, one and all, been romantic exaggera- 
tions. But they invite to effort and meKoration, to faith and 
hope: ''God's in his heaven, all's well with the world." The 
fault Hes in us, and can be cured. The exaggeration of promise 
serves as a compensation ior the seeming bankruptcy of our 
temporal life. The greater the odds, the greater is the in- 
toxication of hope that is required to balance. Hence ideaHsm 
has flourished best in the face of national crises and misfor- 
tunes, whether in an Athens stripped of its power, an exiled 
Israel, or an over-run Germany. It is then that the kingdom- 
not-of-this-world stands out in strongest rehef. The roman- 
ticism of youth will always be indispensable for overcoming 
the disappointments of our work-a-day life. The faith of a 
Plato that only the Good is ultimately real; of a Kant that 



XX INTRODUCTION 

our moral consciousness legislates to the universe ; of a Fichte 
that the world of sense, stubborn though it be, is but the stag- 
ing and raw material for realizing the moral law; of a Hegel 
that, in spite of all seeming bhndness and chance, the world is 
a rational whole ; of a Royce that loyalty to the ideal is the 
supreme key to reahty — all these are noble poems which, even 
by their exaggerations, will continue to inspire the race, long 
after the more rigid systems are forgotten. Friendship, love, 
and hope require idealization to live; and so we need the ex- 
aggeration of the romanticists. Since in ultimate things we 
can know so Uttle that is true, human nature will insist on hold- 
ing fast to that which seems to it a good, trusting that in the 
end this may lead it nearer to the true. 

Is this ideaUzing function of human nature altogether an 
illusion? It must exist for a use, prominent since it is in the 
evolution and welfare of man. There are two views possible 
of this function. We may regard it as a sort of protective 
covering provided by nature for a highly sensitive animal against 
the icy blasts of circumstance, to shield him against inevitable 
disappointments; or we may regard it as the small voice of 
the universe, however imperfectly understood. In the former 
case, it becomes indeed an unaccountable illusion, which fails 
of its purpose the moment man ceases to be the dupe of na- 
ture's trick, and learns the profound lesson that there are only 
atoms and the void. In the latter case, it points to the true 
vocation of man. 

Since the function of both art and metaphysics is to idealize 
life, to grasp its deeper meaning, the relation between them has 
often been emphasized. It has been pointed out that their 
motive is fundamentally the same, viz. the discovery of har- 
mony. For Poincare it is ''harmony expressed by mathematical 
laws. It is this harmony then which is the sole objective reahty, 
the only truth we can attain ; and when I add that the universal 
harmony of the world is the source of all beauty, it will be under- 
stood what price we should attach to the slow and difficult 
progress which little by little enables us to know it better." * 
But though the same feeling for unity and fitness underlies both 
activities, neither the method nor the result are the same. 

* " The Value of Science," p. 14. 



INTRODUCTION XXi 

We cannot agree with those who would substitute the mystical 
and artistic approach for the logical, and who insist that, in 
order really to know, we must supersede thought by intui- 
tion, logic by immediate appreciation. It is true that both in 
art and metaphysics there must be analysis of the primitive 
situation. In each case, these aspects must be supplemented 
with the concrete fullness of experience in the realized purpose. 
i But in art, this supplementation must take place by means of 
spontaneous suggestion, in metaphysics by awake and articulate 
recognition. In the former, the instrument or leading fuses 
with the totality sought ; in the latter, the externality of the 
instrument to its outcome is emphasized. In art, the selective 
activity is for the sake of permanent objects of enjoyment; 
in metaphysics, for the sake of understanding. Metaphysics 
is science, not art. 

Problems of Metaphysics. — Metaphysics has been spoken of 
as the common corridor of the specific types of idealizing ac- 
tivity. As a corridor it serves a double purpose. It opens up 
into the special compartments of truth. It implies, and fur- 
nishes the inspiration of, the special sciences. It is the expres- 
sion of the underlying faith which leads man to seek for unity 
and wholeness in our seemingly chaotic world. It is indeed the 
oldest of the sciences — the mother of science. It is also the 
terminus and clearing house of the specific activities for truth. 
It deals with the common and overlapping problems, left over 
by the special sciences. It is thus the heir of the sciences. It 
must ever be present as a regulative ideal in all our search for 
truth. It indicates the ultimate direction and meaning of aU 
our ideal striving. Historically and logically, therefore, it is 
the Alpha and Omega of our attempts to understand and ap- 
preciate our world. Like a perspective from some high moun- 
tain, it necessarily blurs details in emphasizing the main con- 
tours of the landscape. At best, it is an outlook rather than 
an absolute scheme, a temper of mind rather than a finished re- 
sult. But as such, it corrects our partial emphases and con- 
duces to sanity. Often misunderstood, it cannot be avoided 
so long as we have last «beliefs, and act upon them. 

It has been customary to divide the problems of metaphysics 
into two types — ontology and cosmology. Ontology has 



xxil INTRODUCTION 

dealt with the problem of being or stuff. It has attempted to 
answer the question whether reahty consists of such stuff as 
dreams are made of, or the seemingly soUd stuff of sense quali- 
ties, or a combination of the two. It has also examined into 
the factual relations of things, such as causal, spatial, and tem- 
poral relations. Cosmology, on the other hand, has been con- 
cerned with the ultimate form, purpose, or meaning of our world, 
and has been closely alUed with religion. The division does 
not seem fortunate, since the aspect of form or purpose has as 
real an existence as the stuff aspect and its factual relations. 
Hence there has necessarily been a great deal of confusion and 
overlapping . 

The division of problems in this book is based upon certain 
ultimate and generic concepts, viz. energy, consciousness, space, 
tune, and form. Those who cling to the traditional division 
of ontology and cosmology may find solace in the fact that the 
first four parts, viz. those that deal with energy, consciousness, 
space, and time, may be classed under the traditional heading 
of ontology, and the fifth part, which deals with form, under 
the heading of cosmology. The old heads, however, have 
httle pragmatic value and should give way to a more scientific 
division of problems. 

I have departed from the old custom of giving a cut and 
dried summary at the beginning. Instead of that, I have 
tried to give a concrete picture of the problems in the first 
chapter. Philosophy must begin with intuition, however 
severe may be its method. It is hoped that this imaginative 
statement may be a help to the elementary student, even though 
it offend the pedant. A more technical summary will be found 
in the last chapter, and the professional philosopher may prefer 
to turn to it at the outset. 



A EEALISTIC UNIVEESE 



CHAPTER I 

Perspective: The Divine Five-fold Truth 

It is the holy stillness of night. The world with its busy 
cares is asleep. And that is the witching hour of divine philos- 
ophy. In the silence, a Spirit comes to me and bids me write. 
Is it inspiration ? Or is it the fever of the night's vigil ? I do 
not know. But, somehow, my soul seems calm and I seem to 
see in a sort of mystic way the meaning of things which were 
dark before. At least I will obey the muse to-night and trust 
in the leading of the Spirit, for this seems like no human in- 
sight. Tarry, sweet Muse. The night is young. I would 
fain revel in glorious discourse. At other times I have spoken 
through the long processes of logic. To-night, I would fain 
speak as an oracle. 

The Divine Truth of ''Being'' 

First of all, there comes to me the old and divine truth of 
"being" — not static, inert "being,'' but constellations of 
energy, conscious and unconscious, interlocking and interact- 
ing in space. Worlds rise and dissolve Uke smoke wreaths, 
with ever- varying cadences. Yet through all the shifting forms 
laws prevail ; and we gnats of a day, that are borne upon this 
stream of change, can, to a degree, forecast the future from the 
lingering shadows of the past. In each stage of creative trans- 
mutation, reality speaks to those that can understand : " that 
am I." In spots, and for a cosmic instant, energy collects and 
condenses into material centers. These centers, through their 
mysterious, dynamic threads hang together as a whole. You 
can pass on the light beams from one to the other, even to the 
last. They dance together in mathematical rhythm in cos- 
mic space; and, in the 'infinite ages at least, carry on a fair 
exchange of measure for measure. And part, at least, have 
life and mind and can catch the meaning of their relationship. 

3 



4 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

Spinoza, the God-intoxicated, had a vision of the universe as 
two winding corridors ; each variegated fresco of one is imitated 
in the other, for the order of thought and things is the same. 
Each voice in one has its echo in the other, for the mind is the 
idea of the body. Proceed as you may through the infinite 
windings of one, no window opens into the other. But if eye 
hath not seen nor ear heard, and if it hath not entered into the 
thought of man that there is another half-world, is it more than 
the shadow of man's mind? And if any one doubts the exist- 
ence of the other corridor, who shall prove it? Spinoza, in 
the passion of his fancy, supposed that if things exist, and if 
we become conscious of things, then things must be repeated. 
But things are just such as we must meet them and appreciate 
them in the wide, common corridor of experience. No bhnd 
wall separates experience from the world of its interest and 
love; thoughts and things are part of one divine context. 
It is through thoughts that we can use things, and things 
become significant by entering into the context of thought. 
Thought and things are not two halls, but relationships within 
one dynamic living world. There is onlj^ one window to the 
significance of the world of things, and that is thought, though 
things may hang in their own context, without being thought. 

Whatever varieties of energy science may establish, what- 
ever identities and equivalences it may trace in the flux of 
process, one thing is sure, mind which passes in survey the 
motley array cannot be declared unreal. For mind alone knows 
itself first hand for what it is, is aware of its own activity and 
meaning. Whether we find it convenient to make mind thin 
enough to cover the whole extent of being, or must recognize 
other types of energy, at any rate mind can never reason it- 
self out of existence, can never make itself an accident in a 
world which sets itself the vocation to understand and control. 
Mind by virtue of its history and claims must be fundamentally 
at home in the universe. Its purposes alone can make clear 
the grades and complexities of ''being." Mind is not a by- 
play but; in the words of Plato, *'a noble and commanding 
thing." 

But " being" is not, as falsely supposed by many an inspired 
genius, the only door to reality. It has been the habit of man 



PERSPECTIVE : THE DIVINE FIVE-FOLD TRUTH 5 

thus far to emphasize some aspects and read out other aspects 
of reaHty, according to his temperamental, intellectual, or prac- 
tical bias. In this he has usually been right in the importance 
of the aspects he has read in, and wrong in the aspects he has 
read out. Thus the Eleatics of all time are quite right, that 
there must be *' being" — stuff, constancies, thickness, grist. 
But because there must be thickness, must there be absolute 
thickness, absolute constancy? Could not science and prac- 
tical life get on with relative constancy? So far as our ex- 
perience goes, we do so get on ; and in a manner find our way 
from part to part within the checkered woof of reality. 

The Divine Truth of Time 

Instead of writing a poem to the solid, as Parmenides does, 
why not write a poem, as Heraclitus does, to divine flux, with 
all its sadness and novelty? Our hopes and aspirations, as 
well as our doubts and fears, are built upon the consciousness 
that the universe is not absolutely made, but in the making; 
that the future may divorce the present, however firmly thought 
and its object are wedded now — sometimes by altering our 
attitudes, when the facts we intend seem constant ; sometimes 
by altering the facts in conformity with our more constant 
ideals. But our attitudes are facts, too, part of the dance of 
attention in the ever-shifting focus of object and interest in 
the drama of experience. Like a magician, time converts the 
death of winter into the bloom of spring. Like dew upon the 
flowers, it makes childhood open into youth. Like summer it 
comes into our veins. Like a lapwing in the night, time 
steals upon us and we are old. Even while we sleep it trans- 
forms our values and purposes. Like moth and rust it creeps 
into our equations and facts. However viewed it is true that 
reality is vibrant, that it is ever in solution, that it glows. And 
no static view can ever piece together this motion and life of 
real process. We can hold only part of reaHty in the net of 
our concepts, the rest trickles through. And while the con- 
stant residue is more important for science, what trickles through 
may be the more characteristic of life. 

True, we cannot prove from the fact of change, any particular 
change or rate of change, nor deny any particular constancy. 



6 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

The processes of the universe travel at diverse paces. We must 
take the substances of the reaUty which time transforms, each 
after its kind. But we can prove that if there is change, there 
must always be change. For, in the infinite seons, if time or 
change were finite, it must have run its course untold ages ago. 
Change must be taken as real and underived, prior to all our 
ideal measurements, if it exists at all. This change value, I call 
time. Let the paean be chanted to eternal time — double- 
visaged time, with hoar frost on the brow looking backward, 
and the fire of youth in the face looking forward, fading Autumn 
and budding Spring in one. 

If we center our interest on the flowing, the novel and the 
irreversible, we can easily fall into the mood that only the flow 
is real ; that the flux is absolute and that there is no such thing 
as constancy, or truth even in part; that the transforming of 
the stuff of meanings and of matters is the real and that uni- 
formities are but illusions. With Omar Khayyam we may come 

to say : 

" One thing at least is certain — This life flies : 
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies ; 
The flower that once has blown forever dies." 

Yes, all that is born in the pangs of earthly beauty shall fade 
and die. This would be infinitely sad, if spring and youth were 
not reborn with new beauty at the turn of the year. But 
while 'Hhe bird is on the wing," why deny such seeming perch- 
ings, such constancy as there is, such prediction as experience 
proves? While the hues of the shadows flit and blend into 
each other on the face of the mountain in a thunderstorm, still 
the outlines of the mountain show us the course of the change ; 
and while the torrent hastens to the sea, the scenery of the 
banks helps us to gauge its swiftness. So do the more perma- 
nent fringes of meaning and tendency help us to take stock of 
the fleeting values of our own life. 

The Divine Truth of Space 

And why should not some one write a poem to the void — 
the glorious expanse of space? For what a congested world 
this would be if it were condensed into a mathematical point 
— no looking at each other, no embraces, no starry heavens, 



PERSPECTIVE : THE DIVINE FIVE-FOLD TRUTH 7 

no gravitational equipoises of swinging masses, no differentia- 
tion of individual centers, no canvas for the cosmic artist to 
spread his sunsets on, no marshaling of the ranks of tonal har- 
monies as a result of this absolute condensation — all for want 
of room. If you have space, you can put as many holes into 
it as may be necessary, shooting it through with energetic 
centers, conscious and non-conscious. You can stretch your 
gravitational threads, you can pour in your luminiferous ether 
and spread out your electro-magnetic field; you can fill it as 
full as imagination and convenience may dictate. On its 
neutral background you can paint as great a variety of star 
patterns, of cosmic tragedies and comedies, as the necessities 
of nature and the artistic genius of the universe may prescribe. 

I would not make space everything, carving a world out of 
it by means of geometrical figures as some have done. Our 
imagination at least is too finite to create a universe out of 
nothing, whatever an infinite mind might do. But, in any 
case, you must presuppose your space, which you so thanklessly 
ignore, to have your side-by-sideness of centers, your free 
mobility, your perfect conductivity. No hindrances there to 
the wheels of Charles's Wain, no opaqueness to the mercurial 
messengers of light, — only sublime distances making feeble 
man's artificial measures, where constellations dart through 
space to the Pleiades. Viewed from the side of space, your 
bodies and energies become interferences — departures from 
the pure limit with which we start. 

It is true that in the poetry of science, the limitations of 
space are being annihilated for many practical purposes. The 
electric network of nerves under human control binds humanity 
together for social sympathy and cooperation as never before. 
But it is also true that science has revealed the wonders of 
space to us in a new light, as its equations of distance, both in 
the large interstellar world and in the minute interactions of 
things, bankrupt the resources of our imagination. At any 
rate, so long as distance thwarts the wilFs realization in the 
handclasp of loyal men, the meeting of fond lips, and the em- 
brace of loving hearts, space must be recognized as real. To 
divine, neglected space, bespangled with many a star for diadem 
and begirdled with lightning, let my song go forth. 



8 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

The Divine Truth of Consciousness 

And what shall I say of consciousness, illuminating nature, 
the manifold world of process and its flow? To be sure, it 
would not appear except for the complexity of the world of 
process — its organs and contexts of relations. But they in 
turn would have no significance or value apart from the divine 
light of consciousness. It was a noble insight, that of the 
Sankyah philosophy in far-off days and climes. It is only as 
nature (Prakriti) develops senses and intellect on the one 
hand, to match the motley variety of the world on the other, 
that consciousness can illume the world. It is nature that 
furnishes the subject and the content too. Consciousness is a 
neutral hght. It adds only the awareness. It cannot be 
responsible for plurality of egos, any more than for unity, as 
the Sankyah supposed. Nor does nature vanish with con- 
sciousness, but with it becomes significant nature, aware of 
its pulse beats and its destiny. In itself, consciousness has 
no variety, no color, no direction. But with it comes to Ught 
the color and variety and meaning of this whole checkered, 
flowing world. No wonder the Sankyah philosophers, with 
their longing for mystical peace, for the negation of strife and 
variety, centered their gaze on neutral consciousness and al- 
lowed nature to vanish with the abstraction of attention. 

How long before the mysterious awakening ; what vicissitudes 
of change; what migration of spirit through cosmic spaces; 
what dizzy ages of evolution of organs and of mind, before my 
spirit saw the light, who can tell? Who can follow the journey 
of mind through geologic ages? Who knows whether it is a 
hardy native plant, grown up in the cosmic weather of our 
earth, fraught perhaps with unconscious memory, chastened 
through suffering, selected by nature's breeding from the 
simpler stages of life below; or whether it is a divine gift, 
groping its way in the dark to its father's house? But when 
consciousness does illumine the patient face of nature, what 
beauty of significance is there — in part expressed ; in part 
vaguely felt and only half understood. What opportunity is 
there for sharing in the directive creation of the divine destiny, 
which nursed us to this end. Elsewhere, no doubt, the hght 



PERSPECTIVE : THE DIVINE FIVE-FOLD TRUTH 9 

has shone before; soon the hght here shall flicker and go out 
again, as the soul goes forth to its new mysterious birth. All 
this — the before and after — is hidden in the night of our 
ignorance, but how glorious to be awake just now, to catch 
to-night this glimpse of the eternal procession of the ages. 
Whatever may be the destiny of mind in the cosmic whirl of 
change, thank God for this. 

When I take my journey in the sea of energies, midst ethers 
and star dust, perchance through skies and clouds to stars un- 
known, perhaps to linger here midst dance of circumstance, 
who can tell when and how I shall appear ? But I believe that 
the light of consciousness shall shine for me again ; that I shall 
see anew the glory of God's world ; that I shall feel the sym- 
pathetic touch in the march of the aeons as I never have be- 
fore. If so, what does it matter how long I sleep, waiting for 
the call of God's energies to the beauteous vision? To con- 
sciousness, lighting the world, in one flash of interest and value 
bringing groping will and matter face to face, let my hymn be 
sung. 

The Divine Truth of Form 

And, then, what hymn can I sing worthy of the glorious 
divinity of form? For who would want a chaos of moving 
pictures like the nightmare of a dream? The consciousness of 
such a crazy quilt would be even less to be desired than the 
annihilation of Nirvana. But we have the conviction that 
some facts are worth more than others. In the shifting and 
relative shapes of the flux, the soul comes to the insight, now 
and then, of eternal beauty. Restless sound is woven into 
harmony, the chaos of color into divine form and expression. 
The world of things, to some extent, can be recreated into the 
world of ideals. Who can wonder that Plato found the idea 
of form, of significant unity, diviner than all the flux in space 
and would allow to worth alone the prize of being ? 

Let the materialist claim that beauty is a physiological re- 
lation ; that it depends on a certain structure and its motor 
reactions. He does not* contradict the diviner insight that 
form — significant relationship — is an original and underived 
aspect of reality. True, reality must prepare the spirit for 



10 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

its realization and appreciation by preparing the organism. 
Nature must construct an ^Eolian harp to vibrate with the 
universe of tones. It must invent a photochemic film to give 
us the many colored rays of cosmic light. In the conflicts of 
experience it must bring to clearness and distinctness the 
instinct for fitness and order. Beauty and right come to us 
first as intuitions, before we can understand or separate the 
form from the matter. But if we are nurtured in the lap of 
nature to the end that we may become conscious of form and 
beauty, then it must be true that beauty suffuses the whole of 
things; that the flux has worth only as it is sifted through 
eternal form; that nature's beauty and, still better, our con- 
scious creation of beauty, is the imitation of a reality of which 
we have but a vague intimation, an objective world of form, 
interpenetrating our world of sense, and, in the long series of 
mutations and survivals of history, constituting our human 
nature. Looked at from the side of process, nature is a lavish 
creator, and some of its gifts also have form as read or ap- 
preciated by human nature. This is not mere chance. It is 
part of the selective evolution of reality, for human nature is 
part of nature. Beauty is but nature become conscious of its 
formal character through its more developed organs of human 
nature. Thus do nature and human nature conspire to produce 
the sunset and the symphony. 

In human nature, nature discovers her own order, recognizes 
the rhythmic pulse beats of her restless activity. Her immanent 
tendencies become ideals, her direction organized purpose. 
And this human nature, while it lightens to an extent the past, 
is but the prophecy as yet of the larger overarching and over- 
lapping form toward which the universe in its highest reaches 
is aiming — that free realization of an ideal where work and 
play blend in the fluent and joyous activity of spirit. 

As the music of each passing moment dies into the recessional 
of the past, one thing remains amidst the changes and chances 
of clashing masses and souls — the direction of the process. 
That, at least, is absolute, eternal and divine. What is this 
direction? Is it more than that the universe in patches ex- 
presses ideals and so becomes immortalized ? Is there a grand 
finale? If time is infinite, this should have come to pass in- 



PERSPECTIVE: THE DIVINE FIVE-FOLD TRUTH 11 

finite ages ago. Yet for a superior insight, the patchwork 
may be a scheme. That it is so remains for us an act of faith 
— a faith that, in the drift of cosmic weather, 

" Before me, even as behind, 
God is, and all is well." 

This faith Uke every faith must be justified and transformed 
in terms of our growing experience. For on the shifting sea of 
life, the horizon must ever move forward with the progress of 
the journey, as we steer towards an unknown goal. We can 
catch the direction in part only by looking backward at the 
glittering wake of the past. Unseen insights, new adventures, 
unpredicted accidents confront us in the unknown. But the 
brave souls who search anxiously for the leading and who follow 
the light as God gives them to see the light shall arrive. For 
through it all, we believe, there runs the silver thread of order, 
the cheering message of the beyond. 

The conclusion of my poem, which I can but feebly express, 
shall be that I own the supplementing concreteness, the real 
thickness of life as all of these, interpenetrating in one common 
world. Reality reveals itself in five different ways. It has 
five windows. It reveals itself to our purposive endeavor as a 
world of restless energies with their relative uniformities. It 
reveals itself further as time, which in the flux of selves and 
things gives the lie to the past and creates for the soul new 
mansions of meaning and value. We must also orient our- 
selves to space, the playground of energies where the heavens 
spread out like a curtain and clouds are moved back and forth 
as draperies. Under certain conditions of complexity and in- 
tensity, the whole is lighted up by consciousness; and lastly 
running through it all as the invisible warp of the many-colored 
woof there must be form — the direction which our finite minds 
strive to unravel. This is the Divine Fivefold Truth — the 
five doors which we must enter if we would bask in the divine 
illuminating wisdom. 

The night is far spent. The intoxication of soul is wearing 
off. The cock crows, announcing that matins is at hand. 
The goddess of drowsy slumber will soon lift her silver veil 



12 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

from off the naked earth and depart. The busthng, jostling, 
wakeful, petty cares will return with the dawn. I thank thee, 
Spirit, for divine philosophy. May it prove sane when viewed 
in the glaring light of day. At least the bliss was great, while 
it lasted. And now into Thy care I commit my mind, while I, 
too, join the unconscious world in the soft arms of sleep. 



PART I 
ENERGY AND THINGS 



CHAPTER II 

Being — Matter and the Absolute 

The story of the concept of being is a long one and consti- 
tutes pretty much the whole story of philosophy. From Thales 
down, men have tried to simphfy our world by reducing it to 
some Urstoff, some simple entity or entities in terms of which 
the motley variety of our world might be expressed and imder- 
stood. It might be water, it might be fire, it might be material 
atoms, it might be mind, it might be electricity, it might be 
some combination of elements. In any case the human mind 
has felt more at ease in the world when it has thus simplified 
it. But whatever may be our opinion of Urstoff, upon one 
thing we are now agreed, that experience stuff, as revealed in 
our immediate feeHngs and sensations, on the one hand, and 
our purposive construction, on the other, must be the starting 
point of all our investigations. In terms of this we must differ- 
entiate and express the problems of the universe in so far as 
they can be expressed. But is reaHty through and through 
experience ? 

7s Experience Self-sufficient? :^ 

It has been maintained from time to time, and recently by 
so briUiant an advocate as WiUiam James, that experience is 
self-sufficient; that our hypotheses ''lean on experience but 
experience leans on nothing but itself'^ ; and that we have no 
need, therefore, of any reference outside of experience. While 
it is true that the process of knowing must thus lean on experi- 
ence, must take account of the properties and relations, the 
similarities and differences, the novelties and uniformities as 
they appear from moment to moment in the stream of con- 
sciousness, this does not seem a sufficient account of reality 
as a whole. If we examine the implications of experience 

15 



16 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

more closely, we shall find that our experience, at any rate, 
seems to depend in many ways upon an extra-experiential con- 
stitution. I shall mention a few cases in which experience, in 
the sense of conscious experience, implies such a constitution. 

For one thing, experience does not account for its own con- 
tinuity, either as involved in intersubjective relations in space 
or in the bridging over from moment to moment in time. Let 
us examine the former type of continuity first : in order for 
two egos to come to an understanding with each other, or to 
communicate their feelings and ideas by means of "winged 
words," something more is necessary than their respective 
fields of consciousness. Certain instrumental processes must 
be interpolated. There are the physiological movements pro- 
duced by the speaker, the air waves of the common physical 
continuum which takes up these movements, and finally the 
end-organs and nervous system, reacting to these stimuli. 
Now these intermediate bearers cannot be regarded as experi- 
ence in their own right. Even the immediatist, unless he is a 
solipsist, would have to admit that other people's immediacy 
is not his immediacy, but is communicated by means of inter- 
mediary processes. This would be true even on a telepathic 
hypothesis. How it is possible, by means of such non-conscious 
intermediaries, for conscious egos to meet in a common world, 
we cannot discuss here.^ 

In the second place, we cannot account for the continuity of 
experience in time, any more than in space, as leaning upon 
nothing but experience. To use James's illustration : Peter and 
Paul go to sleep in the same bed ; and while not conscious in the 
meantime, so far as evidence proves, each one, on waking up, 
is immediately aware of his own past, and one does not get 
mixed up with the other. Such continuity, bridging over the 
intervals between our waking moments, must require some- 
thing besides experience. The reason that experience in wak- 
ing connects with experience before going to sleep is that both 
lean for records upon a world of processes which is not experi- 
ential. The machinery of association, upon which the living- 
over of experience depends, is not itself experience. The 
same idea might be illustrated equally well with reference to 

» Soe Chapter XI. 



BEING — MATTER AND THE ABSOLUTE 17 

social experience or the funded knowledge of the race. Clay 
tablets, constituting libraries of ancient lore, have been un- 
earthed in recent years in the Orient. These records of stored- 
up mind became significant anew as experience, after thou- 
sands of years, when they were unearthed and deciphered by 
recent discoverers. Perhaps you retort that they were possible 
experience in the meantime. But what does possible experi- 
ence mean in such a case except that they were not experience, 
until they became continuous, as perception and interpreta- 
tion, with human beings who stumbled upon the libraries? 
The phrase '* possible experience" only hides the problem ; and 
if it means anything when pressed home, it is that experience 
sometimes leans upon processes that are not experience. 
Whether within individual history, therefore, or within the 
history of the race, it is evident that, when you try to explain 
its temporal continuity, experience leans upon an extra-experi- 
ential constitution. 

What I have shown with reference to continuity might be 
shown equally well with reference to interest. Take, for ex- 
ample, a case of primary interest. Why do brilliant things, 
moving things, loud things, things to suck, etc., fascinate the 
infant? Not because of experience, surely, because it has no 
past experience to bank on. If we would find the explanation 
for such interest, we must go back to biological structure and 
conative dispositions, not to psychological association. We 
sum it up by saying that the child and the chicken are so con- 
stituted as to feel this way in the presence of such stimuli. 
Evidently experience leans upon what is not experience, as 
regards primary interest. 

If you take into account the more general demands or postu- 
lates that underlie psychological activities, they, too, seem to 
carry us beyond experience. Why is consistency pleasing and 
contradiction disagreeable to the cultured man? Why do 
certain forms and combinations of colors and of sounds stimu- 
late him to appreciation and excite the feeling for the beautiful ? 
Why do certain things provoke disgust and other things ap- 
proval? Partly, no douKt, on account of experience; but if 
certain instinctive qualifications were lacking, or if the instinc- 
tive constitution were different, the same situations might 



18 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

produce entirely opposite feelings on the part of individual 
experience. In order to understand the learning process, we 
must take account, not merely of experience, but of capacity. 
No facihties for education can overcome the native hmitations 
of the imbecile. And capacity cannot, so far as we can see, 
be reduced to experience. Imbeciles sometimes come from 
highly cultured ancestry, and geniuses from a background of 
ignorant but honest peasants. 

Not only is the woof of experience-in-the-making thus con- 
ditioned by an instinctive warp which experience presupposes, 
but culture and meaning, the net result of experience and 
tendency, are funded in a way which, to a large extent at least, 
is unavailable as experience. Physiological and conative 
tendencies come to do the work of memory. It is precious 
little that a man out of college twenty years, and engaged in 
new pursuits, can recall of his college curriculum. And yet 
he feels differently and acts differently because of his college 
course. Here, again, in the very definition of culture, we 
come upon a subtle relation to reality which is not experience. 
The ego, therefore, whatever else it may be, is not merely a 
"bundle of perceptions" or of any other conscious states. 
They are not the whole story, at least. 

Another road might have been chosen to show the insufficiency 
of experience as an account of reality. If we take the imme- 
diatist point of view, what reality can we accord to nature? 
Is nature merely a " bundle of perceptions ? " We have already 
found such an account inadequate to the ego ; on closer scru- 
tiny we shall find it equally inadequate to account for nature. 
If we insist that the objects of nature are statable merely as 
our perceptions, we must be prepared to answer several ques- 
tions. Does reality consist merely in the perceptual differences 
that things do make, or does it also include the differences which 
they can or will make under other conditions than the present ? 
If we admit will and can, have we not implied a larger con- 
stitution than experience? And, then, what about the con- 
stancies or uniformities in our perceptions, upon which all our 
expectancies or scientific laws are based? Is the recurrence 
of perceptions in different moments of the temporal stream, 
itself brought about by perception ? Is it part of perception 



BEING — MATTER AND THE ABSOLUTE 19 

that perceptions shall repeat themselves in certain describable 
and definite ways? But if perceptions do not exist in the 
meantime, it is hard to see how this repetition can be a char- 
acter of the perceptions. If esse is per dpi, it is hard to see 
what reahty there can be when there is no per dpi. In the 
prediction of an ecKpse a thousand years from now, or the 
reading of an eclipse a thousand years ago, there surely is no 
present perception of the fact ; and absent perception is hardly 
perception. If there can be such a thing, then, as future 
perceptions or the reading off of past perceptions, experience 
must lean upon a non-experiential constitution. 

This is not the whole difficulty of the phenomenalistic theory 
of nature. A further problem confronts us. Can an individual, 
whether conscious or unconscious, be resolved into external 
relations? Can reahty be regarded as having merely an out- 
side and no inside? By thus regarding it we shall, indeed, 
avoid the knotty problem of the "thing itself"; but is our 
account of reahty fair and complete? Is reahty merely what 
it does, in the sense of external continuities, waiving for the 
time being the difficulty of what it may do? In the case of 
one sort of individual at least, namely the purposive ego, we 
must admit that he is not merely what he does, not merely 
the perceptions he produces in us; but he is also something 
on his own account, a center of at least possible appreciation 
and wiUing. This is the real core of the ego for our practical 
social relations, not the external and adventitious ways of tak- 
ing him — not his side-by-sideness or hkeness to other in- 
dividuals, not the sensations of the sight-touch-motor complex. 
The latter for the deeper purposes of our personal relations 
are merely signs — the clothes, or part of them ; and a self 
consisting merely of clothes would be a funny sort of an in- 
dividual. The ego, to use a good Hegelian distinction, must 
be something filr sich and not merely an sich, a meaning and 
value on its own account as well as something for others. If 
only purposive beings have an inside, is the baby merely an 
outside, merely clothes? It seems to have a core of feehngs 
of its own, however crude.' It is an object of will and apprecia- 
tion, of hope and love. And what about animals? Are they 
merely our perceptual outside with no inside? No, they, too, 



20 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

seem to have a core of appetite and feeling which we must 
acknowledge. And while we know little about the inner life 
of the simpler forms of nature, at least they are not merely 
fictions of ours. Our agreements about them are forced agree- 
ments ; they are not created by convention ; and we must learn 
to adjust ourselves to these simpler realities in order to control 
them and to reahze our' purposes. If we would keep dry in 
the rain storm we must bring our umbrella and wraps along. 
While the physical object can to a degree be sensed, while it 
can even for certain purposes be stated as more or less "per- 
manent possibilities of sensation," its existence is not constituted 
by our sensations. Approaching the problem as we must from 
the point of view of our active purposes, we cannot resolve 
reahty, whether conscious or unconscious, into bundles of per- 
ception, or into experience of any form, altogether. We must 
interpolate, somehow, realities which are not immediate ex- 
perience. 

Two Hypotheses 

How shall we conceive this larger constitution? Two im- 
portant hypotheses have become classical, one that of inde- 
pendent and immutable substances, and the other that of the 
absolute. First, a word as regards the hypothesis of sub- 
stances. The realistic substances may be material or spiritual ; 
they may be the extended, impenetrable atoms of Democritus 
or the Leibnizian monads — non-extended, windowless soul- 
points, representing in an ascending scale of clearness, the 
entire universe. It is quite wrong, then, to accuse the older 
realism of being materialistic. On the other hand, the sub- 
stances which have counted in science have, until recent times, 
at least, been of the extended or material order. The monads 
of Leibniz and the qualities of Herbart have not counted in the 
development of science, interesting though they have been as 
metaphysical curiosities. The atomic theory of Democritus, 
adopted by modern chemistry and made exact through Ber- 
zelius's conception of weight proportions, has, on account of 
its convenience for scientific description, come to stand as our 
ideal of atomic realism. 

In the older conception of atomic realism, the geometric 



BEING — MATTER AND THE ABSOLUTE 21 

properties, depending upon extension, are the important ones ; 
even after the idea of energy, in the sense of doing work, be- 
came a permanent concept in physical science, the concept of 
extension was long allowed to rank with the concept of energy. 
This gives rise to Herbert Spencer's antinomy as regards 
extension and force. This antinomy, however, is losing much 
of its relevancy by the fact that extension is relegated to a 
secondary place in the scientific conception of physical nature. 

Some philosophers and psychologists maintained long ago 
that extension is a ''confused idea" and has no reality outside 
of individual experience. Berkeley pointed out, with his 
psychological keenness, that the size of a thing varies with the 
distance and that the form varies with the angle of perspective. 
He concluded, therefore, that matter, being thus relative, 
could not be objectively real. Modern psychology, with less 
of metaphysical interest, but with superior experimental tools, 
has hkewise pointed out the relative character of extension. 
Thus it is shown that the extension seems longer when the 
intervening space is filled than when it is empty, whether you 
take tactual extension or visual extension. Where the area 
is too small for two points to be discriminated as two, they 
still furnish the sensation of a bigger point than either of the 
points separately applied. When a given number of points are 
made to stimulate the skin cells or the retinal cells successively, 
the extension seems larger than if the stimulation is simul- 
taneous. Even as regards sound, we find an interesting rela- 
tion between the rate of succession of physical stimuli and the 
sense of volume. Sounds succeeding each other, approximating 
the rate of g-J^ of a second cannot be discriminated as distinct 
sounds. We cannot here distinguish even between the dura- 
tion of the successive and the simultaneous, but the successive 
feel bigger than the simultaneous.^ Not only the velocity of 
certain electric currents, therefore, but a certain velocity of 
nerve currents produces an apparent mass. 

Modern physical science, however, has been quite untouched 
by psychological investigation. What physical science has 
been concerned with has not been perceptual extension with 
varying conditions, but an artificial unit of extension under 

1 See Chapter XIV, p. 260. 



22 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

standard conditions, as, for example, the steel yard kept at a 
certain temperature, and other uniform conditions, in the 
British Museum. As long as this conventional unit could be 
applied under definite conditions, extension still maintained 
its hold as an ultimate attribute of physical reality. I say 
physical reality because the field of investigation, where ex- 
tensive units have been appHed, has been narrowed down to 
this. Philosophy since Descartes has recognized that there 
is no sense in speaking of an extended will. Even in physical 
science, however, serious doubts have arisen, though on ex- 
perimental and not a priori grounds, as regards the absolute 
character of extension and even of weight. What has given 
rise to this doubt in recent science is the demonstration that 
neither extension nor weight can be regarded as an absolute 
constant, and that, therefore, recourse must be had, for descrip- 
tive purposes, to a more ultimate concept. It has been shown 
by Lorentz that even mechanical mass in motion must vary 
with the electrodynamic field, and so is not constant. Gravi- 
tational mass, moreover, does not seem to apply with equal 
force to all energy ; there seems to be little relevancy in speak- 
ing of electricity as having gravitational mass.^ 

Recent investigations into the nature of electricity have 
shown that mass can actually be produced through velocity. 
Kaufmann, J. J. Thomson, and others have demonstrated 
''that if the velocity of a charged body is comparable with 
that of light, the mass of the body will increase with the veloc- 
ity." 2 And not only that, but the experiments and calcula- 
tions according to Thomson, ''support the view that the whole 
mass of these electrified particles arises from their charge." ^ 

1 See "Electricity," by Gisbert Kapp, pp. 10 and 11. 

2 J. J. Thomson, "Electricity and Matter," p. 34. 

' It is only fair to say that Thomson in more recent publications has modified 
his view. As I understand it, he does not now regard it proved that the sum of 
the apparent masses of the negative charges equals the total mass of the atom. 
There is a residuum of gravitational mass which must be accounted for in other 
ways. This is now a matter of controversy. But in any case the Cartesian 
idea of atoms as rigid, mathematical figures has been exploded. Both the shape 
and the magnitude of the atom vary with the velocity and the magnetic field. 
They can be changed by pressure. Energy, not mass, becomes, therefore, 
the primary physical reality. The atom, Thomson has shown, can be stated 
as the sum of its internal energy and the energy of translation. 



BEING — MATTER AND THE ABSOLUTE 23 

A number of brilliant physicists, including Rutherford, Strutt, 
etc., take the view that the atom can be resolved into negative 
electric charges held together by positive electricity spread 
over a wider volume. The conclusion of these investigations 
would seem to be that there is ^'no mass other than electro- 
dynamic inertia. But in this case, the mass can no longer be 
constant ; it augments with the velocity and it depends on the 
direction, and a body maintained by a notable velocity will 
not oppose the same inertia to the forces which tend to deflect 
it from its route as to those which tend to accelerate or to 
retard its progress. '^ ^ 

The new investigations, so far from disproving the descrip- 
tive significance of the atom as it has figured in physical science, 
have on the contrary furnished experimental corroboration of 
its existence and character. Whether the hypothesis of posi- 
tive electricity proves to be more than speculative, it remains 
significant that the mass of the atom as now measured coin- 
cides with the mass of the hydrogen atom, and this would seem 
to furnish additional evidence for the hydrogen atom as the 
atomic \mit. There is Httle in common, however, between 
this present atomism of the electrical school and the old specu- 
lative atomism. In the new atomism, energy has become the 
chief interest rather than extension or weight, and it has been 
confidently asserted that these can be reduced to motion and 
distance. The atom is no longer regarded as eternal, impene- 
trable, and indifferent, but as the storehouse of pent-up energy 
of enormous quantity, though, as in the case of radium, it 
may be in a very unstable equilibrium. Instead of impene- 
trable, inert bits, we have now to deal with electrical charges 
of a positive and negative kind, although it may still be conven- 
ient to speak in terms of particles or corpuscles as vehicles of 
charges. Instead of the mythological "bonds'' of an older 
chemistry, we have the relation of positive and negative charges 
to each other. Atomic relations are explained by the fact 
that atoms can, under certain conditions, receive or expel 

1 H. Poincare, "The Value of Science," Popular Science Monthly, Vol. LXX, 
p. 349. For the electrical theory of matter see the lucid exposition by Hon. 
R. J. Strutt, in his work entitled " The Becquerel Rays and (the Properties 
of Radium," especially pp. 184-193. 



24 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

particles, in the former case increasing their negative, in the 
latter their positive, charge. By the conception of this elec- 
trical atom and its simpler elements, the electrons, which bear 
very much the same relation as regards distance that inter- 
stellar masses bear to each other, the electrical school strives 
to find a common denominator which, through the stability 
or instability of the structure, can account for the scale of 
physical changes from the ordinary chemical elements to the 
strange behavior of radium. And it has even been suggested 
that nerve energy and mental energy are "inductive" relations 
and can be reduced to electrical phenomena. Thus this school 
feels that at last the old dream of one ultimate Urstoff has been 
attained. We have, instead of the old material pluralism of 
the atoms of Democritus, with their dependence upon me- 
chanical contact, a new energetic pluralism which is capable 
of constituting its own continuum over intervening distances 
by means of energetic charges, whether within or outside the 
gross atom of chemistry. 

Possibly the seventy or eighty elements of modern chemistry 
may be simplified by means of such a theory, but of such a 
simplification, we have only hints at present. The recurrent 
similarity in the geometrical groupings which free magnets 
spontaneously assume in an electromagnetic field when you 
increase their number, as shown by Mayer's experiments, fur- 
nishes a direct analogy to the periodic law of the chemical 
elements and to the recurrent characteristics of these elements 
as shown by spectral analysis. The positive or negative 
chargeabiUty of various elements shows at least an intimate 
connection between them and electrical energy. This theory 
tries with wonderful plausibility to account alike for the stability 
of the ordinary chemical elements and the instability of the 
radio-active substances; but its most interesting aspect to 
us is that, like the earlier metaphysical theories of Leibniz and 
Boscovich, it reduces mass to energetic terms. Thus in mod- 
em physical science we have passed from the Cartesian con- 
ceptual model of rigid geometrical figures enclosing extension, 
to one where extension is regarded as a function of energy. 

While it is clear that the concept of matter must henceforth 
occupy a secondary place to that of energy, it would be a mis- 



BEING — MATTER AND THE ABSOLUTE 25 

take to suppose that the concept of matter has lost its useful- 
ness for scientific and practical prediction. On the contrary- 
it has come to have more definite meaning. What has been 
established is that matter must be explained in terms of energy 
rather than energy in terms of the interactions of inert matter. 
Matter is an ensemble of properties within certain energy 
systems, as taken account of by our sight-touch-motor per- 
ceptions. It does not, however, depend for its existence upon 
our perception. The action of gravity fortunately is the same 
whether we attend to it or not. So are the size, density, and 
other properties of things. While, furthermore, the properties 
of matter such as extension, elasticity, impenetrability, chemical 
affinity, weight, etc., must be regarded as relative to energy 
systems, they are none the less real and predictable, once we 
define our energy system. The empirical generalizations of 
physics and chemistry, based as they are upon observed prop- 
erties, cannot be disturbed by revolutions in scientific theory. 
The laws of mechanics are being applied in the new fields of 
investigation. Electrons act inversely as the square of the 
distance, according to the parallelogram of forces, etc., even 
though it seems that particles at rest repel each other, and 
particles moving side by side attract. While the electrical 
theory has tried to account for the gravitation mass of the 
atom by assuming a sphere of positive electricity, round which 
the negative electrons revolve, no evidence exists as yet for 
positive electricity. All we can say is that positive electricity 
is the property of the atom when negatively charged particles 
are emitted. And if it were proved to exist as an entity, it 
would in no wise affect the material properties, as already 
known, of the energy system which we call the atom. Whether 
the properties we associate as matter exist in all energy systems 
can only be determined by scientific experience. We can make 
no a priori analytic judgments as to their presence. But 
even if they don't, that does not invalidate their presence and 
validity within energy systems where they are known to exist. 
What we must not forget is that matter is a pragmatic con- 
cept, and the ensemble of properties which constitute matter, 
pragmatic properties. They must be taken for what they 
are known-as in specific energy systems. Extension is, for 



26 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

many practical purposes, an important quality of our material 
world. It is presupposed in our units of space measurement. 
If we buy a suit of clothes, we want the right dimensions. If 
we acquire a piece of land, we want the right acreage. That 
extension is not a property in the abstract, but the qualification 
of an energy system, depending so far as our perception of it 
is concerned, upon the number of processes, peripheral and 
central, which are stimulated ; that it varies with motion and 
pressure, etc., does not make it any less real within the condi- 
tions defined by experience. Elasticity on any theory of matter 
still remains, for our senses and physical instruments, a property 
by means of which we can distinguish some bodies which tend 
to resume their former state when strain is released, from 
bodies which do not possess this characteristic, and deal with 
them accordingly. Solidity is still the inertia opposed to the 
pressure of active touch or other pressures. In ordinary ex- 
perience it is relative, to be sure. But a bar of steel at low 
temperature is practically soHd. When it still yields to enor- 
mous pressure, as Professor Richards has shown, this doubtless 
indicates the overcoming of the inertia of the atomic structure. 
But there would seem to be a definite limit, whether reached 
or not, where bodies are incompressible. Chemical affinity 
still remains a tendency to selective behavior among some 
chemical processes under certain conditions of temperature, 
electrolysis, etc. The property of weight which, with its im- 
plication of other properties such as extension, may be said to 
be the pragmatic equivalent of matter, remains fundamental 
for certain purposes on any theory. 

In each case of these and other properties, the property must 
be taken as relative to its energy context and as varying with 
this. Take weight for example. This is clearly a property 
depending upon an energetic system, Httle though we know about 
its structure. Weight is dependent upon a relation of masses 
and varies inversely as the square of their distance. It is a 
constant, for practical purposes, at a given point on the earth's 
surface since the mass of the earth increases but slowly. The 
weight of a body, under ordinary conditions of motion, con- 
stitutes its inertia, and when we speak of the conservation of 
matter, we mean the conservation of weight. In the words 



BEING — MATTER AND THE ABSOLUTE 27 

of Simon Newcomb : " The weight of a body at a given place is 
equally a measure of its mass, and the only measure that can 
readily be applied in practice. Experiment shows the result 
of the two measures to be identical, since weight, or gravity, 
and inertia have the same ratio for all substances. All bodies 
retain their mass unchanged, whatever transmutations they 
may undergo." ^ But the constancy of inertia or mass is in 
turn relative to an energetic system. In the case of particles, 
moving with a velocity approximating light, there is a sudden 
increase of mass due to motion, beside the original mass of the 
particles. But whether we are dealing with inertia as gravita- 
tion mass or as due to velocity, in any case inertia is an energy 
category and eliminating inertia means the withdrawal of 
energy from a given part of space. What has been abolished 
by modern science is not matter as characteristic of certain 
energy systems. This remains a valuable instrument of pre- 
diction. What has been banished is "inert matter'^ as a meta- 
physical entity. 

The weakness in the old metaphysical doctrine of realistic 
substances is that, inasmuch as these substances are independent 
and indifferent to the various combinations in which they 
enter, they cannot account for the apparent processes. The 
rigid material atoms become as useless to account for the 
physical changes as the soul substances become superfluous in 
accounting for the stream of conscious processes. The sub- 
stances, in other words, must be known through their activity ; 
and, therefore, energy, and not substance, becomes the funda- 
mental thing; substances so-called are mere abstractions of 
the relative uniformities and constancies, physical and psycho- 
logical, which we observe in the stream of processes. 

The other classic hypothesis which tries to furnish a setting 
for our finite experience, to account for its coming and going 
and its relativity, is that of absolute idealism. The origin of 
this theory is easy enough to trace. It grew out of the Kan- 
tian doctrine of the unity of apperception. This doctrine 
merely emphasizes that, in. order to be known, the facts must 
be taken into the system of experience with its laws, and that 

* Article on " Matter," Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. 



28 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

consequently the world is coherent for us if we are sane. Kant, 
however, added the gratuitous assumption that the categories 
of our mind are extraneous to reality and that, therefore, reality 
cannot be as we know it. We know it as a dynamic world 
where the properties and laws which pertain to the specific 
activity system must be empirically ascertained. Kant real- 
ized this, but imbued as he was with the old metaphysics of 
inert substances, he insisted, consistently enough, that we 
could not possibly know things as they are in themselves. 
This would evidently have to be by some passive intuition 
which should not involve the interaction between organism 
and stimulus. Kant's common sense led him to insist, how- 
ever, that we should not waste any time over things in them- 
selves, and that for practical purposes, we are no worse off 
for our ignorance of them, since we are concerned only with the 
dynamic world as it appears in our experience. And nobody 
could quarrel with that. 

The successors of Kant accepted his thesis that reality is 
only accessible as it figures within our cognitive system with 
its laws, and that reaUty for us is unified in being taken up into 
our apperceptive system with its postulates. They made, 
however, two important amendments. One is a legitimate 
one, and implied in common sense, viz. that we must assume 
that reality is what it is known-as, or as Hegel would express 
it, that it is the essence which appears. They thus banished 
the fictitious thing-in-itself. The other assumption, which 
the epistemological idealists have added, is illegitimate and 
rests on an ambiguity of language. It amounts to saying that 
because reahty can only be known as experienced, therefore it 
can only exist as experience. This had been expressed before 
Kant in the formula of Berkeley : Esse est percipi, or to be real 
is to be perceived. But for the post-Kantian idealists it sig- 
nifies somewhat more than that. It means that to be real is 
to be apperceived or interpreted. Since, moreover, this inter- 
pretation, from Kant down, is recognized to be social, and not 
merely individual, the hypothesis comes to mean that to be 
real is to exist within the unity of social interpretation.^ Since 

^ The social aspect has been emphasized by Royce in " The Problem of 
Christianity," Vol. II. 



BEING — MATTER AND THE ABSOLUTE 29 

this, too, however, is relative, — has a finite beginning and end 
in time, is subject to error, etc., — to be real must mean to 
exist within an absolute system of experience. Thus the 
unity of apperception is converted into a cosmic unity. The 
emphasis as to the character of this system has varied with the 
temperament of its advocates. Sometimes it is the logical 
character that is emphasized, as with Hegel; sometimes it 
is the ethical, as with Fichte ; sometimes the aesthetic as with 
Schiller, but in any case the assumption is implied that to 
be real is to be part of a system of conscious experience. 

Now, there can be no doubt that the contribution of absolute 
idealism is historically important. It is one of those compensa- 
tory movements by which history strives to correct itself. The 
tendency has been to emphasize too much the material systems 
of reality, and to regard the mental systems as incidental. The 
latter must be recognized to be at least as real as the former. 
Moreover, it is true that the values of our world can only exist 
within mental systems. The supreme interest of man, there- 
fore, should be man, the interpretation of his ideals and in- 
stitutions. It was a sound instinct, too, that insisted that the 
world without, — the larger world of which our conscious 
moments are transient phases, — can be no less reasonable 
than the world within, and that the universe, somehow, must 
respect our higher instincts as it respects our lower. The faith 
that the laws of thought are the laws of things is at least an 
impHcit postulate of all science. Else the thought function 
would be as futile as it would be anomalous. And we may 
assume that the universe has an equal respect for other funda- 
mental ideals of human nature. When, moreover, we approach 
the universe in its wholeness, we may regard our later ideal 
systems as a more adequate key to reality than the simpler 
material systems. 

But this does not prove that the simpler systems are not real. 
Nor does it prove that reahty cannot exist except within our 
apperception systems, be they individual or social, be they 
perceptual, logical, ethical, or aesthetic. Certainly so far as 
our experience is concerned, we must recognize systems which 
so exist. And while they must overlap our mental systems to 
be significant, it is equally true that our mental systems show 



30 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

numerous dependencies upon them in the economy of the life 
process. While, again, values are dependent upon mental 
systems, or the various conscious types of selection of our 
socialized individuals, other qualities and relations need not 
be affected by being taken account of. We discover the ratio 
of gravitational relations ; we do not make the fact itself. Nor 
is it clear that the universe as a whole must be a system of 
conscious experience. Conscious experience may well be a 
characteristic of our peculiar type of interaction with reality 
— real indeed under its own conditions, but not necessarily 
applicable to reality in its wholeness. The latter may have 
no use for sensations or images or words, and yet may be in- 
finitely wiser than our cogitations. The absolute of the epis- 
temological idealists is after all an anthropomorphic projection. 
^'So the Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed ; the 
Thracians give theirs red hair and blue eyes." ^ And while 
the absolute is more of an abstraction, it is still human nature 
with its limitations writ large. This comes out with somewhat 
bizarre humor in the assumption by each absolute idealist that, 
in unraveling his own mental processes with their idiosyncra- 
sies, he is unraveling the absolute. This is not apt to increase 
our respect for the absolute, but we may entertain our doubts. 
As an ideal of knowledge, we do indeed aim at complete 
unification of the facts of our world. Even if reality in its 
wholeness cannot be shown to be a reflective unity of experience, 
the dream of science must be to weave together our human 
facts and interests into such a system. Absolute idealism has 
served to stimulate interest in the logical implications of ex- 
perience. It also fulfills a religious function in some lives 
where the aesthetic and intellectual cravings are more prominent 
than the ethical and practical. But for purposes of explana- 
tion, the hypothesis of an ontological absolute is useless. It 
is not at all clear how an eternal and complete system of ex- 
perience can account in any way for the coming and going of 
our perceptions, the tragedies and successes of our empirical 
world. The absolute as an hypothesis fails as completely, 
and for the same reason, as the old realistic substances in 
meeting the world of process. It is barren so far as helping 

^ Xenophanes, fr. 6a, Burnet's translation. 



BEING — MATTER AND THE ABSOLUTE 31 

us to make any predictions in our changing world ; an entity, 
which is supposed to explain everything beforehand, explains 
nothing. We must go to work, therefore, independently of 
such an hypothesis, aesthetically satisfying as it may be to 
some, to meet the problems of our finite world of change. 

Moreover, as Plato long ago pointed out in the " Parmenides,'^ 
not only could not such a system meet the problems of change, 
but the absolute could not know our finite world, nor could we 
know it. That we could not know it must seem apparent 
enough, for if we knew what an absolute experience is, we should 
already possess such an experience, as, indeed, the absolute 
ideahsts have not been too modest to claim ; but, even in that 
case, we, after all, know only what we know. The absolute 
itself becomes merely our construction — our attempt to inter- 
pret our finite experience. We have failed to reach the per- 
manent and eternal for which the absolute was supposed to 
stand. We know no absolute locus in the world of experience. 
Our absolutes must vary with the growing insight of the in- 
dividual and the race, with the evolutionary process of human 
experience. The historic relativity of the idealistic theories 
would seem to indicate that, in spite of the confidence of such 
men as Hegel, they had no first-hand acquaintance with the 
absolute — not even a wink or tip. If we cannot know the 
absolute, neither can the absolute know us. It could not 
know our ignorance, our failures, and our despairs as the 
tragic facts they are for us. We exist, not merely in logical 
contexts, but in contexts of emotion and action and must be 
known in such contexts. The very fragmentariness of our 
human experiences from the absolute point of view would 
convert our despairs into hopes, our tragedies into comedies, 
and our failures into successes. Such an absolute, then, even 
if it existed, could not account for the world of change, with 
its adjustments and maladjustments and its different levels 
of appreciation. Like the realistic substances, it is an hyposta- 
tization and possesses all the relativity that the unity of finite 
human experience, which created it, must possess. That 
which explains process must manifest itself in the process. 
The meaning we can snatch from the flux of things possesses, 
indeed, a certain eternity while it lasts. It aids us to prepare 



32 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

for the future. It is prophetic of the larger insight and the 
larger experience to come. But as for absolute permanence, 
we know this even less in the field of human experience than 
in the case of chemical elements. The old static view of being, 
therefore, has given place to the view of dynamic processes, 
whether as regards the atoms of the physical sciences or the 
images and concepts of psychology. Being = energy. 

We have tried, so far, two ways of supplementing our momen- 
tary individual experiences so as to make social expectancy 
possible. One way is that of independent substances and the 
other that of the idealistic absolute. Both roads have led to 
the same goal, the recognition of process as an ultimate fact. 
We have seen that "everlasting fixtures," to use Plato's phrase, 
cannot account for our world. A thing must be known through 
what it does or can do ; it must be defined through its dynamic 
relations. Elastic balls, geometrical figures, and other con- 
ceptual entities must be regarded as, at most, convenient ab- 
stractions from the ever-restless processes. Although this 
has been recognized by philosophers in various ways, it is to 
the practical working necessities of science from GaUleo down 
that we owe our present formulation of energy. 



CHAPTER III 
Pragmatic Energism 
The Nature of Energy 

Through a chronic tendency of the human mind, due to 
the stereotyping effect of language, philosophers have sought 
for energy as a thing-in-itself. It has long been maintained 
that we can know only the effects of energy, and the conclusion 
has been drawn that energy itself is inscrutable and unknow- 
able. If effects or changes are merely external relations, they 
will indeed show us nothing about things. But it must be 
clear that such an agnosticism is of our own making. Since 
the fundamental characteristic of energy is activity, it would 
seem that the saner attitude is that of common sense and science, 
both of which estimate energy by what it does. What we 
know about our world in our experience is meager enough, but 
we have at least a right to assume that our fragmentary evi- 
dence is real so far as it goes. And if energy reveals itself 
in certain physical and psychological changes, these, we must 
assume, indicate the nature of energy. We must hold to the 
pragmatic postulate that energy is what it does. Any other 
assumption is suicidal at the outset. 

Others have insisted that we have immediate and intuitive 
evidence of the nature of energy in our sensations of strain, 
our feeling of effort. Now this is true, no doubt, to the extent 
that, if we were not ourselves active beings, we should not be 
conscious of energy in nature. The fact is that we should not 
be conscious at all. Psychological analysis shows that the 
feeling of effort consists in certain kinaesthetic sensations — 
sensations of muscular tension about the forehead and in the 
throat, of labored breathing, etc., when we are baffled by a 
problem. But these sensations are not mental activity. They 

33 



34 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

are reflexes merely, — symptoms of a somewhat unorganized 
or obstructed stage of activity. They are not concomitant 
to all our activity. When the particular activity becomes 
organized and proceeds fluently and easily, the sensations of 
strain disappear. But the activity does not disappear; on 
the contrary it is now most efficient. 

Science has followed the pragmatic method and insisted that 
energy must be known by work done and the sort of work that 
is done. It is true that in the minds of scientists there have 
lingered reminiscences of an antiquated metaphysics, of an 
energy-in-itself, of occult ''forces," and ''latent" energy. But 
such misconceptions have had no effect on the empirical results 
of science. These have to do with predictions of behavior 
under definite conditions. And by behavior science does not 
mean merely a sequence of perceptions. The assumption 
that these constitute the whole story is a metaphysical inter- 
pretation of science. Of course we must know reality through 
our perceptions, i.e. we must become aware of its changes. 
But science does not assume, as phenomenahsm does, either 
that we are dealing only with perceptions or that our per- 
ceptions of things are "faked" manifestations of an energy 
in itself. Our perceptual system may inform us of what 
energy does in systems outside of the cognitive relation. Our 
seeing the gunpowder, and the spark applied to it, and the 
explosion with its results, informs us of what is happening in 
our environment. It is not our perception of the explosion 
which makes the explosion occur ; the work done by the energies 
involved must be taken account of in their own context. In 
other words, science is dealing with real activities, as revealed 
in various contexts, including our perceptual context. Whether 
again we measure energy in foot pounds, the work necessary 
to Hft a pound a foot in a second, or in dynes, the work nec- 
essary to lift a gram one centimeter in a second, is of course 
purely a matter of practical convenience, and has no philo- 
sophic interest. 

Work and inertia are merely two different points of view, 
due to the special interest for the time being. In speaking 
of work we emphasize the going on of activity in connection 
with a scries or direction which we have selected. In speaking 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 35 

of inertia or mass, we emphasize energy which must be balanced, 
overcome, or withdrawn. To start a body moving we must 
overcome its inertia or its energy of position. Again, we can- 
not annihilate the energy of a moving body. According to 
Newton's first law, if a certain initial energy is communicated 
to a body from a definite base, it will move uniformly in a 
straight fine unless interfered with by other energies. Here 
energy must be withdrawn or transformed in order for the 
body to stop moving. To eHminate interference, again, means 
the withdrawal of energy. In our practical social relations, 
we use inertia in a similar sense : it means energy which must 
be overcome or withdrawn. We must overcome people's 
opposition, scruples, or habits. We may be reformers trjdng 
to overcome people's prejudices, or we may be confidence men 
trjdng to withdraw people's caution. Work and inertia are 
pragmatic distinctions depending on our special interests in 
deaHng with our world. They hold for all energies, whether 
it be material masses in space, or electric currents, or social 
interactions. We can see, then, that inertia is a universal 
characteristic of energy. 

The simplest unit of reahty is an energy system. Things 
do not have properties in themselves ; they possess properties 
only within a system, and such properties vary with the condi- 
tions which determine the system. That properties exist in 
the abstract is one of the last superstitions of the old metaphys- 
ics. Take weight, for example, the most important property 
of mechanical science. Does weight exist in things by them- 
selves ? We know that the weight of a body varies at different 
points of the surface of the earth. It is a function, though we 
do not know how, of the attraction of the earth. According 
to Newton's law, bodies attract each other in proportion to the 
mass, and inversely as the square of the distance. For very 
large distances, we know now that gravitation becomes negU- 
gible; and of course for infinite distance it becomes zero. A 
body at an infinite distance from other bodies would have no 
weight, which amounts practically to the same as saying that 
bodies by themselves would have no weight. If you say that 
such bodies have potential weight, that is the same as saying 
that they do have weight when they exist in connection with 



36 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

a certain finite system. The same could be shown for other 
quaHties. Extension is a property things have for us in a 
certain perceptual energy system. This implies, beside certain 
external energies, a certain stimulation of the cells of our end- 
organs, and of our cerebrum. The number of physiological 
processes stimulated seems an important condition, though the 
sequence of stimulations must also be taken into account. In 
any case, extension as perceived is real only in an energy sys- 
tem, and varies with this. And the same is true of the exten- 
sion of things with reference to each other. It varies with 
motion, temperature, and pressure. In so far as we apply size 
and weight to corpuscles moving with the velocity of Hght, 
both properties depend largely, if not altogether, on motion. 
Properties have no meaning for science, except as energy deter- 
minations, characteristics within energy systems. And this is 
as true for what we have been accustomed to call primary 
qualities as for the so-called secondary qualities. Science 
knows nothing about absolute properties. 

The concept of energy as a universal generalization is a thin 
concept. But any predicate of the whole of reality must be 
thin. Hov/ convenient it would be if we could condense real- 
ity altogether into one formula, requiring no supplementary 
definitions, — matter, spirit, electricity, anything that could 
be substituted for the pluralistic variety of our world. But 
leaving a priori and sentimental preferences out, we must find 
what experience warrants us in saying in general about this 
variety. And the predicate of energy is at least more fruitful 
than the medieval, lexicographical predicate of being. It 
furnishes a methodological postulate without which science is 
impossible, and a program which can be filled out by scientific 
research. This methodological advantage of the concept of 
energy is stated clearly in Professor More's summary of Ran- 
kine, the founder of the science of energetics : " Instead of 
supposing the various physical phenomena to be constituted, 
in an occult way, of modifications of motion and force, he at- 
tempts to frame laws which shall embrace the properties 
common to any one class. He finds energy, or the capacity to 
effect changes, to be the common characteristic of the various 
states of matter to which the several branches of physics 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 37 

relate. If we then frame general laws regarding energy, we 
shall be able to apply them with appropriate changes to every 
branch of physics. In all cases we have a certain quantity of 
energy active in a definite manner. Our aim should be to 
find by experiment the properties of any such manifestation, 
and to combine all common properties by general mathematical 
laws." ^ This principle of Rankine can be extended, we be- 
lieve, to the whole field of reality, including organic and psychic 
changes, however difficult it may be in the latter cases to formu- 
late our results in exact mathematical terms. Wherever you 
have knowable entities, whatever their stuff may be, there you 
must have equivalencies in the way of predictable differences. 
Only in so far are they knowable. We must know reality by 
the differences which it makes to our practical conduct. 

The Postulates of Energy Systems 

Our energy systems are cross sections of reality in the service 
of our special purposes. They are pragmatic, but that does not 
mean that they are unreal. They are real just insofar as they 
are based upon genuine characteristics. In analyzing any such 
system there are certain general postulates holding for all 
systems : there must be certain variables, there must be the 
form or organizing relation of the system, and there must be 
recurrence. Recurrence is the pragmatic equivalent of what 
an older metaphysics spoke of as substance. We must now 
try to illustrate the working of these postulates in some typical 
energy systems. 

In a mechanical system, such as that of ordinary kinetic 
energy, we have three independent variables : gravitation mass, 
space units, and temporal units. For purposes of social 
description, these variables must be standardized. We ascer- 
tain the gravitation mass at a certain location on the earth's 
surface, Paris for example. We standardize our space units 
in terms of some common measure, kept at a certain constant 
temperature, whether it be the steel yard in London or the 
meter in Paris. We standardize our temporal units in terms of 
sidereal time, and our clocks are so regulated. These units 

^ Hihbert Journal, July, 1909, p. 785. The views of Rankine are to be found 
in a memoir read before the Philosophical Society of Glasgow in 1855. 



38 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

are constant for practical purposes, but they are at best prag- 
matic measures. The mass of the earth, sidereal time, and our 
conventional space measures are all undergoing variations, 
but so long as they serve our common purposes, we can ignore 
such variations. If all bodies in space varied correspondingly, 
owing to motion or electromagnetic action, we should not be 
able to detect it. But since the quantities measured and the 
measure would vary together, we should not be practically 
affected by this universal relativity. Furthermore, our sunple 
mechanical system has form. It is uniquely determined by 
the three factors mentioned, viz. gravitation, space, and time 
units. It is statable in terms of a simple formula : J MV^, 
where M stands for mass, and V for velocity. And, finally, 
while we Kve in a world of constant flux, and try to steer our 
behavior in such a flux, the system in question repeats itself in 
such a way that we can use the same formula again and again 
imder the stated conditions. 

In a more complex material system, such as a chemical system, 
we can analyze the system into the same elementary postulates. 
If we wish to explain the compound, water, for example, we 
must take account of the variables — the properties of hydro- 
gen and oxygen, and of temperature. We state the organizing 
relation as H2O, the combining proportion of hydrogen and 
oxygen. And once we have standardized the factors, we are 
able to repeat the formula so long as the conditions on our 
earth remain fairly uniform, i.e. for all practical purposes. 

In analyzing electrical systems, we do not seem to be able 
to use gravitation mass as one of our variables. It seems to 
be empirically true that charging a metal bar with any amount 
of electricity does not alter its weight. But science has found 
other variables no less clear and definite. We know electrical 
energy, as we do mechanical, by the work it does. ''The 
presence of an electric current is recognized by three qualities or 
powers : (1) by the production of a magnetic field, (2) in the 
case of conduction currents, by the production of heat in the 
conductor, and (3) if the conductor is an electrolyte and the 
current unidirectional, by the occurrence of chemical decom- 
position in it. An electric current may also be regarded as 
the result of a movement of electricity across each section of 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 39 

the current, and is then measured by the quantity conveyed 
per unit of time." ^ 

In electrical energy, as in mechanical, we are able to apply 
our three postulates. We have certain variables, a certain 
form which is mathematically statable, and we have recurrence. 
'* A current flows in a circuit by virtue of an electromotive force, 
and the numerical relation between the current and the elec- 
tromotive force is determined by three quaUties of the circuit 
called respectively, its resistance, inductance, and capacity." ^ 
In the case of continuous, unidirectional conduction currents, 
the resistance of the circuit is the only one of the above men- 
tioned quahties of which we need to take account. The rela- 
tion of electric motion to this is formulated as Ohm's law, 
" which states that the numerical value of the current is ob- 
tained as the quotient of the electromotive force by a certain 
constant of the circuit called its resistance, which is a function 
of the geometrical form of the circuit, of its nature, i.e. material, 
and of its temperature, but is independent of the electromotive 
force or current." ^ ^' We may otherwise define the resistance 
of a circuit by saying that it is that physical quality of it in 
virtue of which energy is dissipated as heat in the circuit when 
energy flows through it." ^ When we deal with alternating 
or periodic currents we have to take into account inductance 
as well as resistance. Inductance ^'may be defined as that 
quality in virtue of which energy is stored up in connection 
with the circuit in a magnetic form. It can be experimentally 
shown that a current cannot be created instantaneously in a 
circuit by any finite electromotive force, and that when once 
created, it cannot be annihilated instantaneously. The circuit 
possesses a quahty analogous to the inertia of matter. If a 
current, i, is flowing in a circuit at any moment, the energy 
stored in connection with the circuit is measured by J Li^, where 
L, the inductance of the current, is related to the current in the 
same manner as the quantity called the mass of a body is re- 
lated to the velocity in the expression for the ordinary kinetic 
energy, viz. J MV^. The rate at which this conserved energy 

1 Article, "Electrokinetics," EncyclopaBdia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. IX, 
p. 211. 

^Ibid. p. 211. 3 Ibid. p. 211. * Ibid. p. 212. 



40 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

varies with the current is called the ' electrokinetic momentum ' 
of this circuit ( = Li). Physically interpreted this quantity sig- 
nifies the number of hues of magnetic flux due to the current itself 
which are self-linked with its own circuit." ^ In electrical energy, 
therefore, as in ordinary mechanical energy, we can define the 
variables involved in its activity, we can state its organizing rela- 
tion in terms of simple mathematical formulae, and we can predict 
the future for practical purposes under the stated conditions. 

If, again, we take an organic system, we find that we can deal 
with this on the basis of the same postulates. Here too we 
have our variables, our organizing relation, and recurrence. 
Life, complex as it is, is after all, a chemical compound. 
" Protoplasm, the living material, contains only a few elements, 
all of which are extremely common, and none of which is pe- 
culiar to it. These elements, however, form compounds char- 
acteristic of living substance and for the most part peculiar 
to it." Of such elements, the most significant is proteid, con- 
sisting of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur. 
Among other elements are such organic compounds as fats, 
carbohydrates, and various inorganic substances such as salts 
and water. ''We attain, therefore, our first generalized de- 
scription of life as the property, or peculiar quality of a sub- 
stance composed of none but the more common elements, but 
of these elements grouped in various ways to form compounds 
ranging from proteid, the most complex of known substances, 
to the simplest salts. The living substance, moreover, has 
its mixture of elaborate and simple compounds associated in 
a fashion that is peculiar. . . . Life is not a sum of the quali- 
ties of the chemical elements contained in protoplasm, but a 
function first of the peculiar architecture of the mixture, and 
then of the higher complexity of the compounds contained in 
the mixture. The qualities of water are no sum of the quali- 
ties of hydrogen and oxygen, and still less can we expect to 
explain the qualities of life without regard to the immense 
complexity of the living substance." ^ It is true that the syn- 

* Article, "Electrokinetics," Encyclopcedia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. IX, 
p. 212. 

» The quotations are from Dr. P. C. Mitchell's article, "Life," in Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica, 11th ed. 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 41 

thetic chemist has not been able to account for the origin of 
protoplasm by artificial manufacture from the known ingre- 
dients, but this, he feels, is due to the fact that he has not yet 
discovered the unique conditions of temperature, pressure, etc. 
which were present at the geologic origin of hfe. In any case 
his ignorance would not be helped by assuming another ele- 
ment such as vital impulse. Vitahsm seems to be laboring 
under the confusion of trying to account for the unique organ- 
izing relation as a discrete element in the compound, which 
is Hke introducing a water impulse to account for the unique 
properties of water. 

What impresses us about such an energy system as Hfe is 
not so much the variables of composition, concentration, 
temperature, etc., as the architecture or organization. What 
baffles us when we try to characterize hfe is that the elementary 
properties we may enumerate may be found singly in other 
and simpler systems. Just as we cannot point out a unique 
element in the composition of life, so it is difficult to point 
out a unique property. Does living matter grow by intussus- 
ception as opposed to superficial addition? So do inorganic 
liquids, as when a soluble substance is added. Is living matter 
irritable ? It is easy to find inorganic matter which is sensitive 
to specific stimulation. The camera film is far more sensitive 
than our eye; the resonator than the ear, etc. As regards 
instability, if we use Spencer's formula that ''life is the con- 
tinuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations," 
we can parallel the readjustments in the case of life with those 
of inorganic nature. In either case, the action of the stimulus 
is comphcated by the organization of the system and its poten- 
tial energy. As regards mobiHty, so far as that is characteristic 
of hfe, the Brownian movement is the very image of perpetual 
mobihty, and was first mistaken for a hving compound. So we 
might parallel simple reproduction by '' the breaking up of a 
drop of mercury into a mmaber of droplets." Cumulative 
disposition and differential action on the basis of it can be 
paralleled in the inorganic world. Nor are discriminative 
selection and reaction upo4 a type pecuharities of the organic 
world. And, finally, the inorganic world acts in accordance with 
the principles of logic and mathematics, even though it may 



42 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

not be conscious of so doing. If you take the whole range 
of organic action, therefore, you could doubtless parallel the 
various properties and functions in the inorganic world. In 
the large, too, the latter reveals such selective adaptation and 
compensation in its moving equilibrium as would require an 
"omniscient demon" to establish. The uniqueness of life hes 
in the fact, long ago pointed out by Fechner, that life in its 
evolution brings together and correlates, into one unique en- 
semble, a vast array of properties, which are scattered in nature. 
This ensemble has unique properties of its own, new ways of 
storing potential energy, and new modes of behavior. No 
theory of the origin of Ufe or its relation to antecedent evolu- 
tionary stages can affect the uniqueness of the system itself. 
Nor must we regard its spontaneous or uncertain character, 
for our limited powers of prediction, as a pecuUar merit. For, 
in the first place, this is due largely to our ignorance ; in the 
second place, we value conduct because it is dependable as 
well as because it is novel. We prefer people who are invari- 
ably truthful, honest, just, and kind to those who are Kable 
to do anything whatsoever. 

If we, finally, take up the most complex type of energetic 
system with which we are familiar, viz. that of social inter- 
actions, we must here too apply the same postulates. We 
must discover the variables, the organizing relation, and the 
type of recurrence which we can predicate. We can abstract, 
for the purpose, from the material conditions, such as geographi- 
cal configuration, temperature, water supply, character of the 
soil, etc., as well as from the organic conditions which form 
the background of the race, and deal with a social system as a 
closed system, as we have done in the other types. We may 
find analogies from the more elementary systems useful here. 
Sir Joseph Larmor, in speaking of a material system, says : 
"The amount of energy, defined in this sense by convertibility 
with mechanical work, which is contained in a material system, 
must be a function of its physical state and chemical consti- 
tution and its temperature." ^ Translating these categories 
into terms of society, we may say that the variables in a social 
system are the group conditions in the way of greater or less 

1 Article on "Energetics," Encyclopsedia Britannica, 11th ed. 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 43 

condensation of numbers, the mental constitution of the factors 
involved, and the common emotional excitement. Durkheim 
has oversimphfied the problem when he tries to account 
for society in terms of volume (or number) and density, the 
definition of material mass. These have indeed their appro- 
priateness. We find that volume is a variable involved in 
social conduct. The volume of suggestion makes it more 
effective. The number engaged in the action affects the con- 
duct of the participants in an altered sense of responsibility 
and in the checks and releases that obtain. We find, too, 
that density or proximity has its corresponding effect. It 
gives a peculiar reality and vividness to the relation, which is 
particularly marked in crowd action. But these variables, if 
used in any limited sense, are not the only ones. To understand 
the psychic state or inertia, we must take account of the peculiar 
equilibrium at the time, within the group in which we wish to 
produce effects. This may be a static equilibrium in the way 
of habits and traditions, or a moving equilibrium in the way of 
certain tendencies which the group is striving to realize. In 
each case the sort of equilibrium that exists conditions our 
action. Timeliness of suggestion is important if we would 
accomplish results. In an equilibrium moving in the opposite 
direction from our intent, we may find that hitting it laterally, 
or by indirect suggestion, encounters less inertia than hitting 
it head on. Again, as regards constitution, we find that we 
must take account of the individual characteristics of the 
components in the way of inherited and derived tendencies. 
The mental constitution conditions the type of action which 
we can expect. We must know our people, their race traits 
of instinct and temperament, and their psychological tendencies 
of needs, ambitions, and aversions. This is quite as necessary 
as knowing the elements which enter into the chemical com- 
pound. In either case, if we fail to take account of the reactive 
properties of our elements, we may find ourselves unwilling 
participants in an explosion. We must try to discover, too, 
the amount of emotional excitement which is necessary for 
the specific reaction to take place. Social compounds have 
their boiling point and freezing point, their point of solvency 
and crystallization, as truly as chemical elements. We must 



44 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

find what degree of afRrmation or passion will precipitate the 
special type of reaction. As in the case of dynamite, the in- 
stability of the structure may make the effect out of all pro- 
portion to the releasing stimulus. Witness the present war 
of the European nations. 

To understand a social kinetic system we must take account 
of the organizing relation, as well as the variables of its constitu- 
tion. We must find the thought form, the ruling passion, the 
dominant purpose, which makes the tendencies converge in 
one direction, be the interaction between individuals within 
the group, between the individual and the group or between 
groups. Sometimes lust for power, sometimes love of wealth, 
sometimes self-preservation, sometimes racial prejudice, some- 
times loyalty to truth and right form the organizing bond. 
But always there is a striving for unity and simplification, for 
a new equilibrium, and this gives direction to the struggling 
motives. And as in physical systems, the movement is direct 
or in a straight line, except as there are interferences to overcome 
or go around, so in the social system. In the end, ideal unities 
are the only ones which can succeed in giving an adequate and 
durable direction to the various claims. Unified action must 
be reasonable action. 

In social systems, as in simpler systems, there must be such 
recurrence of traits and situations as makes prediction possible. 
The difference Ues in the enormous complexity of the social 
situation. By means of statistics, we can, to a certain extent, 
eke out individual observation ; and in regard to some types of 
reactions such as marriages, births, suicides, etc., our curves 
are fairly constant; or, at any rate, the deviations are clear. 
For understanding the deeper motives and effects of human 
conduct, we need historic perspective. But here, as in the 
simpler systems, the facts have their own perspective of which 
we must take account, relative though our interpretation must 
necessarily be, in virtue of the fact that history is potentially 
infinite and that interpretation is of the very essence of the 
creative human process. 

In analyzing energy systems we have selected our illustrations 
from the kinetic state of energy. This is due partly to the fact 
that we found this procedure simpler, but more to the fact 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 45 

that this state of energy is more significant for metaphysical 
purposes. The potential state, that of position or configura- 
tion, derives its significance from the moving state. By poten- 
tial, we mean what energy can do when certain conditions are 
supplied which are different from those obtaining. Thus, to 
pass from energy of position to the kinetic state, there must, 
somehow, be unequal distribution of energy. In the case of 
falling bodies, we have unequal distribution of gravitational 
energy. Thermodynamics is built on the unequal distribution 
of heat. In the case of electrical energy, ''if any cause operates 
to add or remove electrons at one point, there is an immedi- 
ate diffusion of electrons to reestablish equilibrium, and this 
electronic movement constitutes an electric current. This 
hypothesis explains the reason for the identity between the 
laws of diffusion of matter, of heat, and of electricity. Electro- 
motive force is then any cause making, or tending to make, an 
inequality of electronic density in conductors, and may arise 
from differences in temperature, i.e. thermo-electromotive force, 
or from chemical action when part of the circuit is an elec- 
trolytic conductor, or from the movement of lines of electro- 
magnetic force across the conductor." ^ In the case of social 
systems, it would be a case of the unequal distribution of 
emotional-volitional excitement. 

In the potential state, energy is just as real as in the kinetic 
state, but is balanced or in equilibrium for the time being. In 
the case of a building supported on pillars, the energy of the 
pillars balances, for the time being, the gravitational energy. 
In the case of human actions, certain tendencies to action are 
balanced for the time being by inhibitions. A man would 
steal, but he is afraid of the police. In either case, when 
the balancing energy is withdrawn, we have an unequal dis- 
tribution, and the persistent tendency becomes kinetic energy. 

The term potential, however, is sometimes used when we 
contrast expectancies under one set of kinetic conditions with 
those under another set. Certain electric vibrations can be- 
come sensations of light to us when they act upon a photochemic 
retina; and certain air vibrations can become sensations of 
sound when they strike our ear and are transmitted to our cor- 

1 Article on "Electrokinetics," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. 



46 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

tical centers. Here the contrast is not between energy of con- 
figuration and energy of motion, but between what happens 
in the case of different reagents. In any case, the properties 
which are observed in certain contexts cannot be said to pre- 
exist independent of the contexts as was supposed by Anaxa- 
goras, for example. According to him, the fruit of Demeter 
which we eat, and the water which we drink must contain the 
germs of blood and tissue and bone and hair which they serve 
to build up. The reason that things can produce such different 
results in different combinations is that everything contains 
a portion of everything. It is only the proportion of the prop- 
erties which varies, and which determines the character of 
the particular thing. If pain is present in stimuU of a great 
intensity, then it must be a latent property at any intensity. 
But potential is not a category of the actual world, but of our 
social expectancy. The chicken is not present in the fresh egg 
at all. It would be nauseating to think so. Knowing that 
certain properties appear in certain energy systems, we can 
predict that they will recur when the conditions are repeated, 
but they are only real within the system. 

Potential energy, therefore, is not to be regarded as a dis- 
tinct type, to be set over against such types as material and 
electrical systems. It is rather a set of expectancies which we 
may have in regard to any type when we contrast one condition 
with other conditions. We may contrast the condition of 
balance or equilibrium with work done when the special type 
of energy exists in a kinetic state ; or we may contrast the work 
done under one set of kinetic conditions with that done under 
another set. Nature obviously does not know the word poten- 
tial. It is a contrast which is contributed by our mind. In 
reaUty each reactive relation is uniquely determined, — in 
the case of material systems, by such characteristics as the 
physical state, chemical composition, and temperature, by 
geometrical pattern and direction, by cumulative numerical 
values, and by distance. Potential is not a characteristic which 
figures in the determinations of a system. The tendency to 
read our expectancies into reality as though they existed prior 
to and independent of the dynamic situation is only another 
instance of the pathetic fallacy. 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 47 

Some Empirical Laws of Energy 

We have dealt so far with different types of energy systems 
and the factors which determine such systems. While each 
type of system must be taken as unique and its specific char- 
acteristics observed, there are some characteristics which seem 
to hold for all systems of energy. Beside the general postulates 
of variable, form, and recurrence which hold for all systems, 
there are certain empirical postulates which pertain to energy 
systems in particular. These general characteristics are some- 
times called laws, though this is somewhat of a misnomer since 
they have only been verified for some limited systems. One 
of these is the law of conservation of energy and closely asso- 
ciated with this is the conservation of mass. The law of con- 
servation of energy has definite meaning when we deal with 
special energy systems. In a material system, for example, it 
signifies that when a certain amount of energy disappears 
as motion, it reappears as heat ; and the quantity of heat is 
equivalent to the lost motion, though from the point of view 
of available energy it is only in part convertible into motion. 
It is equally easy to show the meaning of the law in the case 
of an electrical system of energy. Energy which disappears 
as electricity is found to reappear in the equivalencies of 
mechanical motion, chemical decomposition, or heat. In 
organic and social systems it is difficult to ascertain exact 
equivalencies in the complexity of changes involved. But 
here, too, we can in part, at any rate, note such equivalencies. 
In fact it was in connection with the potentials of foodstuffs 
in their relation to physiological activity, that Mayer first 
suggested the law, which was afterwards tested for material 
and electrical energies by Joule. It is clear that in organic 
and mental work there is a relation between nourishment and 
work done ; there is also an equivalent in the way of heat as 
energy is used up. The heat of the skull, in the case of mental 
activity, is found to increase, and can be measured, though 
that of course is only one of the equivalents of mental work. 
Here as in mechanical eilergy, we must take account of the 
going on of the impulse itself and its effects in kind, which 
it would not seem possible to measure in an exact way. When 



48 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

you try to state the law of conservation of energy as true of 
all systems, Poincare is quite right that it is necessarily vague. 
It signifies that there is some sort of constancy, that there are 
equivalencies, but it furnishes no definite content. Even so, 
however, it has more meaning than the old barren formula of 
identity in difference. 

The law of conservation of mass or inertia is similarly empir- 
ical. It has been verified for some of the simpler systems 
of energy. Gravitational mass can be taken as practically 
constant at a certain point of the earth's surface. In the case 
of electrical mass we can measure the inertia of the current or 
electromagnetic field. In the more complex forms of energy, 
such as the organic and social systems, we are equally aware 
of the reality of inertia, and must deal with it, though we have 
no exact way of measuring it. We know, in any case, that 
inertia varies with motion. A moving body presents a differ- 
ent inertia from a body at rest. In the case of high velocities, 
approximating the velocity of light, there is a sudden increase 
of mass. Mass also varies with direction. A body in motion 
presents greater inertia to a body moving in the opposite 
direction than to a lateral impulse. This is equally true of the 
inertia of material bodies, of electric currents, and of social 
inertia. The constancy of mass in any case is a pragmatic 
affair. 

Another characteristic, which seems to be practically general 
so far as our observation is able to go, has been called the law 
of degradation of energy. There is a tendency for energy to 
move from a higher to a lower potential. Since activity de- 
pends upon an unequal distribution of potentials, there would 
seem to be a tendency for the available energy to decrease, 
and for the universe to run down. This is particularly notice- 
able in connection with the constant tendency for a certain 
amount of energy to be dissipated as heat which can only in 
part be made available; but it holds wherever there are un- 
compensated expenditures of energy. This law does not con- 
tradict the law of conservation of energy since the sum total 
of energy would still remain constant, even if all available energy 
were diffused into random molecular motions, such as we ob- 
serve in the Brownian movement. While the degradation of 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 49 

energy seems to be inevitable, from the point of view of our 
limited survey and control, it cannot be regarded as an ultimate 
law of the universe. The Greeks with inferior tools, but a 
superior imagination, reahzed this. In the words of Empedo- 
cles : ''For if they (the elements) have been passing away con- 
tinually, they would not be now." ^ Maxwell showed that an 
omniscient demon, by sorting all the greater velocities on one 
side of an imaginary partition, and all the lesser velocities on 
the other side, could create new available energy. ''This shows 
that the principle of the dissipation of energy has control over 
the actions of those agents only, whose faculties are too gross 
to enable them to grapple individually with the minute por- 
tions of matter which are the seat of energy." ^ if the universe 
is infinite in time, there must be some compensating agency 
corresponding to Maxwell's omniscient demon which keeps the 
universe wound up. It remains true, nevertheless, that for 
our practical purposes energy systems are in part, at any rate, 
irreversible. 

Any postulate, which is based on a one way process, — such 
as the law of equilibrium, the law of least stress, Spencer's law 
of evolution as a passing from homogeneity to heterogeneity, 
with a corresponding dissipation of motion, — can only have 
significance for limited systems within our experience. If we 
apply them to reality in its wholeness, without compensation, 
they imply a finite beginning and end of our world. In an in- 
finite past, any one way process of finite changes must have 
run its course innumerable ages ago. 

Another characteristic which seems to be universal is that of 
rhythm. We have long been familiar with the rhythmic char- 
acter of some of the large movements that give us the periodicity 
which is the basis of our time measurements, whether in the 
rhythmic functions of the organism or of our astronomic system. 
We have observed, too, the rhythm in the evolution of life forms 
where periods of stability seem to alternate with periods of 
mutation ; and we are f amihar with a similar rhythm in the 
social history of the race. It is only recently, however, that 
Planck's theory of quanta has called our attention to the same 

1 Burnet's translation, line 90. 

* Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., article, "Energy." 



50 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

rhythmic character in the more minute and simpler systems of 
energy where we seem to observe the systole and diastole of 
nature's heart. Energy seems to proceed by finite drops 
rather than by continuous and infinitesimal gradations. Mo- 
ments of potential and active energy alternate. It is also 
discontinuous as regards the quantitative conditions of its 
activity. Effects of a characteristic kind take place only 
when a certain threshold of inertia has been overcome. This 
is illustrated in the physiological realm by Weber's law, which 
formulates the fact that certain differences in sensation can 
be perceived only when the stimulus is increased by a definite 
ratio of the previous amount. 

We have seen that relativity is a fundamental characteristic 
of energy systems. Properties vary with the system. We 
can speak of no properties in the abstract. Our standards of 
measurement are subject to variation no less than the things 
measured. For practical purposes, we standardize our units 
of measurement by making the conditions as stable as we can. 
But at best the conditions of which we can take account are 
limited. If our standards and the things to be measured vary 
alike with reference to conditions outside of our observation, 
we are necessarily ignorant of such variations, and for practical 
purposes they do not concern us. But theoretically the thought 
is uncanny and disquieting. We know of no absolute position 
in space or absolute system of relations. Motion is for us 
relative to a limited system of positions which we have selected 
for provisional purposes. Our generaUzations, whether of facts 
or values, are circumscribed by the relative systems of our ex- 
perience. Our standards of measurement, whether of energy, 
time, or space, are all alike pragmatic. They are conveniences 
within the particular conditions with which we happen to deal. 
And so long as we can find our way and perform our common 
tasks on the basis of them, they are practically valid. This 
does not mean absolute agnosticism, since such properties as 
we experience, and such relative relations as we can observe, 
must be real in any case, however fragmentary they may be, 
and however much more intelligible they might become in 
more comprehensive systems. Nor does relativity mean 
neutralism. It is only our intellectual abstractions that are 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 51 

neutral. Things for us must be known as ensembles of prop- 
erties within energy systems. As such, they do real work. 
When we speak of activity as the common characteristic of 
all our real systems, it is not the abstract concept of activity 
which does work, but activity as uniquely determined within 
the special system with its movement and form. Neutralism 
is the emasculated ghost of the old superstition of abstract, 
independent entities, — the grin without the old metaphysical 
cat of inert substance, but none the less reminiscent of that 
beast. Not even mathematical entities have any meaning 
except as predicative functions within a system, though here 
the system is analytic, determined purely by our assumed ini- 
tial postulates. Energetic systems are empirical. Their prop- 
erties must be discovered a posteriori. 

The Relation of Energy Systems to One Another 

It is the custom of science to deal with systems of energy 
as closed systems. We have seen, however, that certain char- 
acteristics overlap and seem to hold for all energy systems. The 
question naturally arises as to the relation of these systems to 
one another. Can we find a common denominator? Science 
deals with special systems and their characteristics. The 
transition from one system to another — from gases to liquids 
and soUds, from the chemical elements to their compounds, 
from material systems to electrical and mental systems, with 
the unique ensemble of properties in each case — science takes 
as a matter of fact. It recognizes the discontinuities in nature 
as well as the continuities. Whether we are concerned with 
conditions that are under our control, as in the production of 
the compound, water, from hydrogen and oxygen in the chemical 
laboratory, or with conditions antecedent to our experience by 
vast geologic ages, and still unknown to us, as in the case of 
the compound, life, science accepts new beginnings as facts, 
and observes and catalogues the characteristics of the new 
system as best it can. 

Philosophy cannot know more than science about matters 
with which science deals.« It has no business to stick to inert 
substance when science has found the conception of energy 
the more fruitful one. It has no right to pass upon the facts 



52 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

or theories of science so far as these are based on experience, 
and found sen-iceable in meeting oiu* practical problems. But 
it is the pro\'ince of philosophy to trj^ to understand science by 
correlating its results with each other, and with the permanent 
demands of the race. 

It would seem, in the first place, that creative synthesis is 
of the ver\' nature of reaUty. We must accept the new quahties 
and values as gifts, whether it be the compounding of mechanical 
forces in a new direction, or the properties of chemical com- 
pounds, or a new life imity, or a new social bond. In each 
case, we must take account of the properties unique to the 
specific situation, as well as obsers'e the persisting constants. 
In each case, we must follow the lead of experience, and shape 
our theories accordingly. Each energy- sj*stem with its prop>- 
erties must be taken as real. It has just such properties and 
relations as are manifest in the sj-stem, whether they be the 
simpler properties of material systems, or the more complex 
properties of such systems as life and mind. There is nothing 
occult about energ}', except as our ignorance makes it so. 

In the second place, sj-stems of energy-, as we find them in 
the real world, overlap. There are no closed sj-stems except 
for our abstract purposes of description. They make definite 
differences to each other. They interpenetrate and interlock 
into one energetic world. Energies, throughout the complexi- 
ties of s^'stems, retain their primal propert}' of doing work. 
They are ever expended into other energies and reimbursed 
from them in the great clearing house of nature. The cleavages 
are of our own making. They are due to our assumptions, not 
to reaUty. When, for example, science held to the hj-pothesis 
of inert substances, acting on each other by impact — inert, 
extended, material substances and inert, non-extended, mental 
substances — as its working model of reaUty, it was difficult to 
see how material energy- could in any way make a difference to 
mental. It would be equally difficult to see how it could make 
any difference to electrical systems, where Uke^^nse molecular 
models do not seem to apply. In either case, we should have 
to invoke parallelism with its absurd results to bolster up our 
initial assumptions. But our intellectual models cannot alter 
the facts. The real units of reahty, we have seen, are not 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 53 

inert entities, but energy systems, in one type of which material 
properties constitute a differential characteristic. The ener- 
getic conception of reality leaves us free to follow the lead of 
the facts, and to recognize such continuities and discontinuities, 
such uniqueness and interdependence as we find. Electricity 
gives rise to mechanical and chemical changes; and they, in 
turn, serve to liberate electricity ; and while the latter is more 
subtile and pervasive, it is the material world which canalizes 
our electrical energies and makes them serviceable. Plant life 
is dependent upon the material systems for nutriment and 
framework, and upon light and heat for the processes of 
assimilation and growth. The mental type of system leans 
upon the material and organic systems. It requires proper 
nutriment, proper conditions of temperature and light, proper 
bodily position, proper rhythms of rest, in order to do its work, 
not to mention its dependence upon neural structure. It is 
clear that it is the more complex systems that overlap and are 
correspondingly dependent upon simpler systems. Heat would 
seem to be the lowest and most amorphous type of energy from 
our point of view, as the more complex energies seem to be 
dissipated as heat, and thus seemingly lost as available energy. 
But as we have already pointed out, this can hold only for 
our limited perspective and powers of control. 

Reality reveals itself in many systems. It is matter, it is 
light, it is electricity, it is mind, it is truth, right, and beauty. 
It is all of these and many others. All the varying phases 
belong to it, and one is no more real than the other. It is 
" day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and 
hunger; but it takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is 
mingled with different incenses, is named according to the savor 
of each."i 'pj^g more complex systems furnish a greater variety 
of properties, but however imposing they may be, they must 
trail along and draw their sustenance from the simpler, even 
as the ivy trails along and draws its sustenance from the soil. 
While the more complex systems logically overlap the simpler, 
which they presuppose as conditions and instruments, this does 
not mean that the simpler have no existence of their own, but are 
always dissolved or taken up into the more complex. When they 

1 Adaptation of Heraclitus, fr. 36, Burnet's translation. 



54 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

are so taken up, they cease to exist as simpler. Water, as an 
individual compound, has definite, characteristic properties; 
while water, taken up into other compounds, inorganic and 
organic, is no longer water. It has lost its individuality. But 
the water that satisfies thirst, with many other unique prop- 
erties, has claims of its own. We do not want it merely 
abrogated into more complex systems. We would not want 
to drink water that has entered as a constituent into blood, or 
let the children play with water that has been taken up into 
nitroglycerine. In the economy of the whole, one system 
cannot be said to be more necessary or real than the rest. 
Here, at any rate, the words of Browning hold : 

***** Nor soul helps flesh 
More now, than flesh helps soul." 

Of each, we must say, in characterizing reaUty: "That art 
thou." There is no substrate except the interlocking, inter- 
dependent energies ; no unity, except the form of each, and of 
the multicolored whole. 

The passion for simplicity, however, is incurably rooted in 
the human mind, and there will always be the attempt to 
reduce the concrete variety of the world into some primordial 
system, be it matter, electricity, or mind. This seems a 
mistaken and fruitless quest. We must adhere to the prag- 
matic postulate without which we could not proceed at all, 
viz. that reality is what it manifests itself to be in its varying 
contexts. The process is fundamentally a creative process. 
It is not a shuffling of neutral entities. The properties are 
combining properties; they are uniquely determined by the 
system. We have no right to dogmatize, whether in reading 
backward from the more complex systems to the simpler ones, 
or forward from the simpler to the more complex. We must 
find our way on the basis of experience and take reality as it 
exists at each stage of complexity. 

We can, indeed, classify systems on the basis of common 
and differential traits; and we find that some can be treated 
as varieties of one species. Thus it has been found that elec- 
tricity, light, radiant heat, and magnetism can be successfully 
dealt with on the basis of a common electronic theory, though 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 55 

their differentia are no less significant than before. It has 
been suggested that nervous energy may be reduced to the 
electrical type. Says Professor Gotch : "Physiology has defi- 
nite grounds for believing that, as far as present knowledge 
goes, both the production and cessation of central nervous dis- 
charges are the expression of propagated changes, and that 
these changes reveal themselves as physico-chemical changes 
of an electrolytic character. The nervous process, which 
rightly seems to us so recondite, does not, in the light of this 
conception, owe its physiological mystery to a new form of 
energy, but to a circumstance that a mode of energy displayed 
in the non-living world occurs in colloidal electrolytic structures 
of great chemical complexity. '* While science thus seems to 
have succeeded in simplifying large domains of facts, so long 
seemingly heterogeneous, it has also discovered new varieties 
and complexities which challenge further reduction and corre- 
sponding overhauling of old categories, as in the case of radio- 
active energies. For pragmatic purposes, three general types 
of systems would seem to stand out — the material type of 
system with its differentia of gravitational mass and molecular 
motion; the electrical type of system with the electron as its 
energy unit; and the mental type of system where conative 
tendency, with its possibilities of consciously directed action, 
cognition, and appreciation, is fundamental. But such a 
classification is purely a matter of convenience, and throws no 
light upon the process itself. 

We seem to get more Hght when we take the evolutionary 
point of view. No doubt our systems of energy, as we observe 
them to-day, are the result of a long process of selection and 
survival. Darwin showed this in a classic way for the organic 
type of system. It is equally clear for the more complex mental 
systems, on the basis of which we must understand human 
history. Nor does the inorganic world lie outside this evo- 
lutionary conception. The properties of matter, the dis- 
tribution and concentration of the elements, and the stability 
of the present material structure — these are all the result of 
a selective survival process. It does not seem probable that 
this marvelous adaptation of the material system to telescope 
into and form a fit environment for more complex systems such 



56 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

as life, can be accounted for on the basis of mere chance.* It 
is ^'rnore congenial" to our mind, to use Poincare's phrase, to 
assume intelligent selection within the process, however much 
such selection may surpass our faculties. That systems exist 
at all — relationships of processes statable in terms of a few 
simple principles — would seem in itself, as Newton long ago 
pointed out, an indication of rational emphasis within the 
world of which our reason is a part. 

While the empirical generalizations about evolution must 
always have significance for our reading of reality, their meta- 
physical interpretation is often confused. Here the mechanical 
tendency of the human mind has come in to vitiate the reading. 
While we can trace a sequence from simpler to more complex 
systems, within a given series, we cannot say, therefore, that 
the properties of the more complex systems are compounded 
out of the properties of the simpler ones. If complex life- 
systems have evolved from unicellular organisms, it does not 
follow that they are a mere mechanical combination of the 
simpler organisms. New properties have been developed 
as a result of the organization, differentiation, and selection 
within the process, in its adaptation to a larger environment. 
These properties must be taken for what they are in each stage 
of development. 

Owing to the early progress, as well as to the convenience, 
of mechanical science, it was natural that material systems 
should come to be emphasized as the essential type of reality, 
and that the more complex systems should be regarded as 
compounded out of material properties. But while we must 
recognize material properties as real within the systems where 
we find them, we have no reason to regard them as any more 
real than the unique properties or ensembles of properties which 
appear in more complex systems, such as life and mind. Even 
if the material type of system were absolutely earlier, it would 
not follow that it is more real. As a matter of fact, the material 
type of system is just as much an evolution as the organic type. 
And while, in our limited series of geological evolution, the 
material system had to evolve to a certain stage before life 

^ See in this connection '*The Fitness of the Environment," by Professor 
Lawrence Henderson. 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 57 

forms could appear, the two types of systems have for long ages 
evolved together and a corresponding fitness been established. 
Nor does it follow from the temporal antecedence of the material 
properties that they could give rise to the properties of the 
more complex systems, or that the material properties are of 
greater importance in understanding reality. The real ener- 
gies which we deal with in evolution have other potentialities 
than material properties; and it is these potentialities that 
come to light in the creative process of the universe. It is not 
the properties of extension, weight, cohesiveness, etc., which 
constitute life, though they are present, and form an important 
index to our description of life processes. Life is characterized 
by the ensemble of properties which is unique to its own system 
and which cannot be said to exist at all in material systems. 
The properties of the simple systems must be treated as in- 
strumental when we deal with the more complex systems. 
They are, as it were, handles or signs, by means of which we 
can lay hold of and, to a certain extent, describe and control 
the conditions of the more complex systems. Thus we are 
able to produce a chemical compound with its new properties, 
once we know the constituent elements and the proper conditions 
of temperature, etc. Thus the great nature chemist was 
able to produce, through the energies of a seemingly dead world, 
the properties of life ; but the deadness exists only in our in- 
tellectualistic misconceptions. To try to account for life as 
a compound of material properties is as reasonable as to try 
to account for the characteristic thinking of a man on the basis 
of his size and weight. These are indeed important for certain 
kinds of behavior of human beings — getting a suit of clothes 
for example — but they do not as such account for their think- 
ing. 

The electrical theory is subject to the same criticism as the 
old material atomism. We cannot account for matter as a 
mere arithmetic sum of negative electric charges any more 
than we can account for life as a sum of material properties. 
The material atom is, on any theory, a unique system with its 
own combining relations with other atoms, its own unique 
properties, which are not the properties of free electrons ; and 
adding an unknown element of positive electricity does not 



58 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

clarify the situation, any more than adding vital impulse to a 
material system explains life. Whether such an element is 
proved to exist or not, we should still have to take account of 
the concrete system of matter itseVf with its concentration, 
pattern, durability, and reactive properties. On any theory, 
the material system is uniquely real; and we must take the 
characteristics as they exist in the system itself. There is 
indeed an interesting analogy, as pointed out by J. J. Thomson 
and others, between the figures assumed by magnets in an 
electrodynamic field and the periodic law of the elements. But 
mathematical laws sometimes hold for decidedly disparate 
systems. Witness the formula for kinetic energy. The 
different conductivity of different elements would not prove, 
any more than disprove, an electrical substrate. A man 
carrying a log is not necessarily a log. Even if the char- 
acteristic properties of matter, such as extension and weight, 
can be simplified for purposes of description by being stated 
in terms of motion and distance, or if the material atom can be 
regarded for certain purposes as a halfway house for treating 
facts which are further dissociable into electric charges with 
their particular and constellation velocities, it still remains 
true that extension and weight are practical determinants 
which matter does possess, and which electric charges, as we 
ordinarily understand them, do not possess. 

To try, again, to account for matter as mind, — "degraded'* 
or "estranged" mind, "mind hide-bound with habit," — is 
at best a confusing use of language. Material systems do not 
have the properties of mental systems. They are as unique 
as the latter and have their own claims to reality. They are 
not dignified one whit by being associated with the name of 
mind. There is no reason, moreover, for using opprobrious 
epithets about matter. It has its own place and importance 
in the economy of reality. It is the unique distribution, con- 
centration, and durability of the material world which makes 
possible the more complex systems of life and mind. Through 
the correlative evolution of matter, reality makes possible 
that other series of evolution which terminates in significant 
and appreciative reactions to the world. The material and 
vegetative systems furnish the stored-up energy, the stable 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 59 

frame, the means of canalization of the more subtile energies. 
They furnish the tools, — direct in our bodily movements, 
indirect in the case of material instruments, — which make 
intelhgent behavior possible. 

There is one sense in which we can speak of the more complex 
systems as higher and more real. They reveal more fully 
the potencies, the actuality of the world of energies in which 
we live and move and have our being. They overlap logically. 
They imply the simpler systems, such as the material and elec- 
trical, as their background and instruments. They [indicate, 
in a more concrete way, the direction, the formal organization 
of the larger world, the system of systems, from which our 
fragmentary systems are abstractions. It is because this 
system of systems, with its potencies and form, interpenetrates 
the humblest parts of the universe, and gives direction to the 
whole, that it seems as though the simpler systems produced 
the more complex. But what we call "matter^' is more than 
matter. The seemingly inert energies of our world are fraught 
with infinite potentialities as they enter into the more and more 
complex systems, and yield up the for-us hidden properties, 
in the stress of heat, in electrolysis, in organic assimilation, in 
the emotional excitement of mind associations. We may well 
say with Browning : 

** Well, this cold clay clod was man's heart : 
Crumble it, and what comes next ? Is it God ? " 

^In the case of one system, the various systems do indeed 
converge into one unique relation so far as we are concerned. 
And that is in the cognitive system. It is mere tautology to 
say that for us to speak of energies they must first be known. 
In so far as known, they are indeed uniquely determined by the 
cognitive relation. But it is a false assumption to suppose that 
our knowing the forms and properties of systems constitutes 
their existence. We can know the systems because they exist 
and have a certain form and certain properties. This is as 
true of our own past as of the Milky Way. Our taking account 
of them is an afterthought. It does not alter the unique sys- 
tems of which we take account. The stellar system, the prop- 
erties of our material environment, the reactive properties of 



60 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

plants, the civilization of Greece, existed — they had their own 
properties and form — long before we took account of them. 
Hence, we can abstract from our personal perspectives and 
socialize them. We sociaUze our space orientation, which in 
the first instance depends upon the organism and its needs. To 
make inteUigible our fleeting perceptions, we interpolate our 
gravitational and electrical systems. We discover their prop- 
erties and mathematical form. In mental systems, we have 
again a unique reality which we must try to understand. Only 
in such systems is the ensemble of properties known as values 
possible. These systems are indisputably real when they 
exist, and are irreducible to other systems. They are " the 
master light of all our seeing." 

In these conscious mental continuities, reality reveals to us, 
not only the formal relations which we discover and retrace 
as truth, but the demand for justice, the property to have 
mercy, the response of beauty. This is true not only in our 
human relations, but still more in those higher continuities 
which we call communion with God. These higher contexts 
must be taken to reveal the nature of reality, quite as truly 
as the simpler contexts which we deal with in mechanics. Each 
system makes its own unique creative contribution; each 
system furnishes a solution in which reality shows more of its 
reactive properties. Thus electrical systems reveal properties 
which lie outside our material systems. In the chemistry of 
the organic systems, we find marvelous powers of assimilation 
and response, which, so far, lie beyond our artificial imitation. 
In our mental systems, with their greater capacity for storing 
up potential energy in the way of inhibitions and facilitations 
of behavior, this complexity of properties increases still more. 
It is here that the unique responses of value arise as creative 
additions to our world. These are as much a part of the 
reality of the world as the chemical responses. They constitute 
for us its choicest part. The universe, in its varying systems 
of creativeness, calls to our mind the Chinese swallow which 
gives us our edible nests. First it produces a nest of largely 
external material and contributes but little of its substance to 
the frame. In its second building, after being deprived of its 
first nest, it labors harder and secretes more of itself. In the 



PRAGMATIC ENERGISM 61 

third nest, in the pain and anxiety of frustration, it yields up 
its very lifeblood and colors the nest with its crimson. So in 
the rare solutions of our intense emotional excitement, the 
energy of the universe, in the pain and stress of clashing interests 
and the threatened defeat of its ideal instincts, contributes its 
very soul as it labors to give birth to new values, and colors 
the gray world of matter with its rainbow glory. Here the 
systems of the universe not only exist but have significance. 

And who shall say that our limited mental systems are the 
last word of reahty's revelation? The energy which shows its 
marvelous properties in all these systems and which, even in 
the simplest, reveals a subhmity which humbles our power and 
insight, may well be capable of higher creative syntheses, more 
comprehensive actuahties and insights than those associated 
with our organisms and our social institutions. That such a 
synthesis is real, we have an intimation in the vast correlative 
adjustments of nature of which we get gHmpses in science, and 
in those instinctive demands for harmony and beauty which 
make themselves but feebly felt in us. We can see and appre- 
ciate but piecemeal and in the dark glass of our prejudices. 
The directive power of the universe of which we have intima- 
tions in om* higher continuities no doubt has a more adequate 
way. In the meantime we must have faith in our own insight, 
relative though it be. 

In this brief survey of energy, we have impKed throughout 
other categories than energy properties. Only so could we 
understand energy in action or as doing work. Otherwise 
it would be congealed, — frozen energy. We have implied 
geometrical properties and time properties which must figure 
in energy systems. Ws have also impHed form, without 
which energy systems would be unstatable. Elsewhere we have 
given more adequate consideration to these characteristics. 
We must here turn to a further analysis of energy properties, 
as they appear in the world of things and minds. 



CHAPTER IV 
Do Things Exist? 

At first sight nothing could seem more obvious than that 
things, individual blocks, exist. In fact, that things exist as 
individual and distinct has seemed far clearer to common sense 
than that minds are individual. We have only to recollect 
that Aristotle found mind (active nous) impersonal and uni- 
versal, while the body, with the functions depending upon it, 
seemed to furnish the individual substrate, and that Thomas 
Aquinas made the body the principle of individuation, without 
which human souls, like the angels, would merge into the genus. 
It is unnecessary to say that philosophy has changed front in 
this respect, and finds it comparatively easy to recognize the 
individuality of minds, while the independence and individuality 
of things has well-nigh disappeared in the general continuum. 

The Antipathy to Things 

There have been several motives for this attitude towards 
the reality of things. It is hardly necessary to mention that 
of temperamental mysticism, which will always seek reality in 
haziness and away from distinctions. Our going into a trance 
or going to sleep does obliterate plurality so far as we are con- 
cerned. But while it does away with the significance of dis- 
tinctions for the dreamer, does it also do away with the existence 
of distinctions? I do not believe so. I cannot help feeling 
that we are wiser when we are awake than when we are asleep, 
and that reality is such as we must take it in our systematic 
conduct. I would rather trust the tried-out distinctions of 
common sense and science than the dreamy confluence of 
mysticism. 

Our antipathy to distinctions, however, may not be due 
merely to temperamental laziness. It may be due to conceptual 



DO THINGS EXIST? 63 

difficulties. Thus the difficulties of conceiving plural things and 
their interactions in space lead Lotze to conceive the universe 
as a polyphonic unity — an ''aesthetic unity of purpose in the 
world which, as in some work of art, combines with convincing 
justice things which in their isolation would seem incoherent 
and scarcely to stand in any relation to one another at all." ^ 
Bradley, in a similar way, having found the problem of relations 
and of motion insuperable on his abstract basis of procedure, 
has recourse to an aesthetic absolute where the plurahty of 
things and their ceaseless struggle is at rest. I cannot see, 
however, how we are justified in reading plurahty out of the 
world because its existence interferes with our ready-made 
concepts. New concepts, perhaps the electrical definition of 
physical atoms, may make it easier to see how a world of 
relatively stable things may coexist and interact. In the mean- 
time, if we must acknowledge diversity of things for purposes 
of conduct, we must hold that they have some distinct reality, 
even while we are perfecting our conceptual models. In any 
case, thought must wait upon facts. Where we find symphonic 
unity of system, there we must of course acknowledge it. But 
when the facts do not warrant such intimate unity, we have 
no right to read it into them on the basis of a priori conceptions. 
Even within our own individual history, we are far from find- 
ing a closely woven purposive unity. We are the creatures 
largely of habit and instinct. We must provisionally acknowl- 
edge different types of continuity of which unity of purpose is 
only one. 

The intellectualist's condemnation of things owes its con- 
vincingness to certain deep-rooted prejudices. One of these 
prejudices is that individuality means indivisibility, and con- 
versely that what can be divided into parts cannot be individ- 
ual. The substance of Spinoza and the atoms of Democritus 
are alike indivisible. This difficulty of indecomposabihty 
would of course equally influence our view of psychic unities. 
We would have to deny the reahty of the self, because it is 
complex and capable of analysis. The art object would fall 
to pieces the moment we. analyzed it. Hence you have either 
a heap of pieces on the one hand or a mystical, undifferentiated 

1 " Metaphysics," English translation, Vol. II, p. 60. 



64 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

unity on the other. Now, what we must do here is to face the 
problem honestly and cast out prejudice. We can, as a matter 
of fact, recognize a self or a work of art as a unity, if the com- 
plexity converges in a direction or towards a purpose. If in 
the organic or inorganic thing we can recognize a common im- 
pulse or movement, we must recognize the thing as one, even 
though it is complex and physically divisible. 

This prejudice is closely connected with another — the vice 
of abstraction, useful though abstraction is in its own place 
in the economy of thought. This prejudice consists in empha- 
sizing the disjunctive function of the mind and in ignoring 
the conjunctive. Thus it is regarded as self-evident that the 
disparate qualities — the creatures of linguistic substantiation 
— exist; but their interpenetration, their coexistence in the 
one thing, is regarded as the insuperable problem. And it is 
insuperable, if you take the disparate abstractions for granted 
and try to compound a thing out of them. But this is starting 
at the wrong end of the process. We must go back to the 
concrete object. While our thought can abstract qualities, 
these quahties do not exist first as abstract entities and then 
compound themselves. They are ways of taking things in 
concrete contexts. If we can discriminate distinctions within 
the object, it is quite true that we must regard such distinctions 
as real. But if we must take the distinctions as coexisting, 
interpenetrating, flowing into each other, cohering in one pat- 
tern and movement, it is also true that they can so interpene- 
trate and coexist. Our conjunctive way of taking the object 
of experience needs no more justification than our disjunctive 
or analytic way. If the distinctions do coexist and interpene- 
trate, they can do so. We do not make the transitions or 
unities, any more than the discreteness, in taking account of 
them. And Berkeley is quite right in maintaining that no 
additional entity, no substance, or x, can simplify the fact, 
which is given with the quahties, viz. that they interpenetrate 
and persist. To trace these coexistences and transitions of 
the facts of experience is the business of science, quite as much 
as that of the analysis of properties. 

It is strange that the unity of the thing should have caused 
so much trouble, while most philosophers have been willing to 



DO THINGS EXIST? 65 

take the diversity within the thing for granted, I cannot see 
why one is not as mysterious or as clear as the other. If you 
assume that a thing is mere abstract unity, it is true that no 
logic could get diversity out of it. If, again, you start with a 
collection of independent, disparate qualities, it will no doubt 
be impossible to get any unity into it. The simpler way is to 
proceed empirically and not to make absurd assumptions. If 
we can distinguish diversity of function, then, of course, there 
is diversity. If diversity of function, on the other hand, 
makes a thing go to pieces, if the only transitions possible are 
those of identity of property, then we should at least be as 
consistent as the father of intellectualism, Parmenides, and 
with him rule out all diversity as inconceivable, leaving the 
residuum of the homogeneous block of " being." 

Another intellectuaHst prejudice of which we must rid our- 
selves is the assumption that an individual, in order to be 
distinct, must distinguish itself. On this basis, only self-con- 
scious individuals could exist, and they only so long as they are 
self-conscious. We ourselves would vanish as individuals the 
moment we go to sleep or when our interest becomes absorbed 
in the objective situation. I do not believe this a valid as- 
sumption. Neither the existence nor the significance of an 
individual need depend upon self-discrimination. We have 
individual significance so long as any experience distinguishes 
us, whether we are awake or asleep. And the existence of an 
individual is in no wise dependent upon being distinguished. 
A thing may exist as individual a million years before it 
is distinguished. It is individual not because it distinguishes 
itself or we distinguish it, but because, when we do take account 
of it, we must treat it as distinct for the purpose in question. 

Nor is it necessary to regard self -subsistence or independence 
as the condition of reality. If only the self-subsistent were 
real, then only an indivisible whole, as Spinoza maintains, 
could be real. Now, it is quite true that the parts must, some- 
how, hang together. At least the physical world hangs to- 
gether by its gravitational threads. But such hanging together 
need not prevent a certain individual play of the parts. The 
earth hangs together with the solar system, but that does not 
prevent the earth from having its own motion and history. 



66 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

For finite purposes at least, it is convenient to take reality 
piecemeal. And reality has parts and distinctions just in so 
far as it lends itself to such individual taking, however much 
the parts may cohere with a larger pattern. It is such plural- 
ism which makes practical adjustment and scientific sorting 
and identification relevant. The parts or aspects are real, if 
we must meet them as real. And the recognition of the char- 
acter and reality of the part may, for the purpose in question, 
be more essential than the reaUty of the whole. 

It is not necessary, on the other hand, in order to recognize 
the plurality of the world, to fall into the opposite intellectuaUst 
abstraction, that of absolutely independent plural entities 
such as the old-fashioned atoms or monads. Such an assump- 
tion is necessarily suicidal, for since such entities could not 
make any difference to each other or to any perceiving subject, 
it becomes impossible to speak of them as having properties 
or even to prove their existence. Even zero must be part of a 
thought context in order to be considered as existing. Things 
are as independent and impenetrable as we must take them. 
They may exist, as we have seen, independent of our cognitive 
context. They may come and go, so far as our awareness is 
concerned, without prejudice to their existence. But in some 
context they must hang. I cannot conceive of individuals as 
outside of any context at all, as making no difference to other 
individuals, for it is through such difference to other individuals, 
and in the last analysis to human nature, that we conceive of 
an individual as existing at all. I can see only the possibility 
of a relative pluralism — pluralism with its rough edges, its 
overlapping identities — both from the existential and the 
cognitive side. No center liveth unto itself, in the isolated 
sense of Leibniz's monad. But such relative pluralism prevents 
in any c£ise the blank monotony of Eleatic " being." And while 
the parts hang with each other, they must be considered as real as 
the whole. The whole has no reahty abstracted from just such 
parts. If the parts are relative to the whole, the whole is no 
less relative to the parts. If we emphasize that individuals exist 
and have significance only in contexts, it is well not to forget 
that they do exist within the contexts, social or physical, and can 
be identified in the variety of contexts into which they enter. 



DO THINGS EXIST? 67 

Another and more serious kind of objection has been raised 
against the reahty of things from the HeracHtean point of 
view, represented so briUiantly at the present time by Professor 
Bergson. If the universe is an absolute flux, making sections 
in the stream of change and caUing them things must be a 
purely artificial attitude — an illusion due to our gross sense 
perception at best and justified only by its convenience for 
practical purposes. To quote a recent statement of Bergson's : 
*'I regard the whole parceling out of things as relative to our 
faculty of perception. Our senses, adjusted to the material 
world, trace there Unes of division which exist as directions, 
carved out for our future action. It is our contingent action 
which is reflected back in matter, as in a mirror, when our eyes 
perceive objects with well-marked contours, and distinguish 
them one from the other." ^ Things, therefore, have no real 
existence. They are due merely to our practical purposes. 
The real world is one of absolute fluency, where the past is 
drawn up into the moving flow. Not extension, but interpene- 
tration ; not repetition, but absolute novelty and growth ; not 
quahties, but change, characterize the real world, the key to 
which must be foimd in our own stream of consciousness. This 
real world can be grasped, not by the intellect, but by intuition, 
which gives us the real flow, as contrasted with the stereotyped 
copy of the intellect. And how do we come to speak of things 
at all, then ? By means of the intellect we form a space image 
of the real process. This image is hke the cinematographic 
copy of moving figures. It is a static picture of spatiaUy 
spread out and recorded changes which we substitute for the 
real duration. But while the latter is characterized by inter- 
penetration and indivisibihty, the former is characterized by 
extension and divisibihty. Science decomposes the objects of 
sense still further into molecules and atoms and centers of 
force, but these pictures of science have no more reaUty than 
the perceptual things. They are merely contrivances to deal 
with the world of flux. 

Such, in brief, is the view of Bergson, and it certainly carries 
with it a great deal of truth. Our purposes are indispensable 
in the significant differentiation of our world ; and sometimes, 

1 Jour. PhU. Psychol, and Sci. Meth., Vol. VII, No. 14, pp. 386 and 387. 



68 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

no doubt, our marking the world off into parts is as artificial 
as the astronomer's longitudes and latitudes and his names for 
constellations. The world, too, from our finite point of view 
at any rate, is a world where novelty and growth play an im- 
portant part. I cannot admit, however, that the new Heracli- 
teanism gives us the whole truth. 

In the first place, we must be suspicious of all absolutistic 
formulas. Absolute flux is as impossible of proof as absolute 
identity. Bergson and Parmenides alike must found their 
philosophy on intuition and conviction. I prefer the more 
modest pragmatic way of taking the world.^ This means to 
take the facts at their face value. If there seems to be change 
and novelty, then, in so far, we must own it, whether our 
novelty is a retracing of an absolute experience or is objectively 
creative. Knowledge, whatever claims to absoluteness we 
may make, is after all our finite human version of reality; 
and we have access to no other. And for us change and novelty 
are real facts. But while we must recognize novelty and inter- 
penetration as facts of our experience, it is also true that we 
must recognize a certain amount of constancy. And this 
constancy cannot be due merely to language and space objecti- 
fication. There must, on the one hand, be constancy in our 
meanings, our inner purposes; and they are real processes. 
And there must, on the other, be constancy on the part of the 
processes referred to. Else constancy on the part of our 
symbols would not avail. Suppose we had a world where 
everything flowed but the symbols : in such a world we could 
not recognize or use the symbols as the same. There could 
be no such thing as intellect in such a world, because it, too, 
would have to change. And even if memories and concepts 
dipped into such a world from another universe, they would 
be utterly useless where nothing repeats itself. The intellect 
is an agency for prediction ; and what we must be able to 
predict is the real world of processes. Mind and things must 
conspire to have science. Even in the cinematograph, you 
have the constancy of the pictures and of the machinery which 
repeats them ; and they are part of the real world. 

1 My attitude to pragmatism I have explained in "Truth and Reality," 
Macmillan, 1911, especially in Chapters IX and X. 



DO THINGS EXIST? 69 

Nor is it true of things, any more than of selves, that our 
marking them off from their context is purely arbitrary. It is 
difficult enough in either case ; and we cannot pull them, root 
and all, without pulling a good deal of the context with them. 
When we come to define what we mean by Caesar, we find that 
he is very much entangled with the past out of which he 
grew, with the age in which he struggled, and with the results 
and opinions of his labors ever since. Yet for all that he is a 
well-marked character which we can understand and appreciate. 
So with the thing — the organic individual, like the tree, or 
the inorganic individual, like the stone or the crystal. In any 
case, they are individual, when we must deal with them as 
such; not when we mark them off arbitrarily, as in the case 
of the rainbow. And this is true though the individual is 
complex ; though it may consist of many interpenetrating im- 
pulses, all traveling at diverse paces. 

The Pragmatic Significance of Things 

When we come to define what we mean by the individuality 
of a thing, the problem waxes more difficult. Psychology 
gives us but scant help. As a matter of fact, it has tended 
to unfit us for the proper attitude to reality through its sub- 
jectivistic tendency. What we intend when we speak of a 
thing or act on a thing is not a fusion of sensations, together 
with the suggested sensory and ideational complex. This is 
merely an account of the process of becoming aware of things 
and not an account of the reality of things. Things can make 
sensible differences to our organism, but they are not constituted 
by our perception. They must be taken as preexisting in their 
own contexts, prior to such sensory discrimination on our part, 
else our instincts would not be adjusted to them ; they could 
fulfill no interest or need on the part of our will. The sensory 
differences, for practical purposes, exist primarily as signs or 
guides suggesting further control and use. The sight sensa- 
tions, in the case of the infant, suggest the motor reaction of 
active touch, which in turn suggests the reflexes of eating. 

What, then, individuates things? First of all, from the 
point of view of significance, they are individuated, as we have 
seen, by the purposes which select them and which they fulfill. 



70 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

They would have no individual significance except as thus 
differentiated in our cognitive experience. The thing must 
embody a will. Aristotle was quite right in saying that we 
cannot treat the thing as a mere collection. We cannot 
regard the word as a mere collection of letters, in so far 
as it is an individual word. "We must seek the cause by 
reason of which the matter is some definite thing." ^ For 
Aristotle this means finding the final cause of the thing. In 
artificial things like the word or the work of art, it is quite 
plain that we must find the idea which is expressed. Can we 
also find such an objective idea in natural things? No, we 
cannot find it there. We must be satisfied if it has such dis- 
tinctness of character and history as to fulfill a specific purpose 
of ours, whether it sustains the relation of a work of art to a 
more comprehensive experience or not. 

It does not follow, however, that things are created or "faked" 
by thus being taken over into our cognitive context. The selec- 
tion and acknowledgment is forced, not arbitrary. The thing 
must suggest an own center of energy. It must roll out from 
the larger field of experience, forcing attention to its own move- 
ment and identity. Our cognitive meaning, so far from con- 
stituting things, must tally with the things — terminate in our 
perceptions of them — in order to be valid. If the thing is 
real, it cannot be infinitely divisible, i.e. the form of the thing 
cannot be merely of our own choosing. To be accorded objec- 
tive existence, the thing must be acknowledged as having its 
own impulse, its own history, its own pattern of parts, which 
our ideas must copy sufficiently for identification and prediction. 
And the thing may have to be acknowledged as having such 
character and history, whether as old as the sun or as evanescent 
as the cloudlet. 

Can we identify such things in our experience? In the case 
of the organic thing, we seem to have a natural unity, com- 
parable to that which we have in the case of the unity of the 
ego, even though the former is not a significant unity. There 
is a history which embodies a certain end or has a certain direc- 
tion. To be sure, organisms may sometimes be divided without 
destroying their life ; and the lower organisms do propagate 

1 "Metaphysics," Bk. VII, Ch. XVII, 1. 



DO THINGS EXIST? 71 

their existence by spontaneous division. But the cell seems 
to be even here a fairly definite entity. The unicellular or- 
ganisms have an individual immortality which is only limited 
by external accident. 

When we come to inorganic things, the problem is difficult. 
On the analogy of geometrical quantity it has sometimes been 
held that physical things are infinitely divisible. Interesting 
antinomies have been invented from Zeno down by playing 
between the mathematical and the physical conception of 
quantity. But we must not confuse mathematical divisibility 
with physical divisibility. Empirically, what we call things 
are, on the one hand, capable of being taken as individuals. 
On the other hand, it is possible to distinguish parts. Do we 
come to a limit in our division where we have to deal with a 
final natural unity? We do for practical purposes at least. 
The molecule, which, thanks to Perron, has now been definitely 
identified and measured, seems like a distinct stopping place, 
if we would preserve the character of the compound. And in 
recent years interesting experiments have been made by Ruther- 
ford and others to prove the real existence of the atom. These 
results cannot be ruled out by any a priori theory as regards 
infinite divisibility. The atom in turn seems to be a holding 
company for energies which under certain conditions can act 
individually. A smaller unit, the electron, it has been shown, 
must be assumed to account for such phenomena as radio- 
activity. The negative electric charge seems like a natural 
unit. Is it final? We cannot say. All we can say is that 
we have had no need so far of assuming a smaller unit. There 
certainly is no evidence for infinite divisibility. Furthermore, 
because units do not have absolute permanency and are them- 
selves complex, that does not gainsay their individual reality, 
while we can take them as individual. The chair is an individ- 
ual while we can use it as a chair, however complex and un- 
stable its structure. 

It will be seen that we have adopted the instrumental method 
in dealing with the reality of the thing. Unhke the self, the 
thing has no meaning or value that we can share with it. We 
must judge it, therefore, by the ways in which we must take 
it in realizing our purposes ; and we must hold that its reaUty 



72 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

is precisely what we must take it as in the service of our specific 
will. Let us now try to sum up the pragmatic significance of 
the thing. In the first place, we have seen that we cannot 
speak of things unless we have persistent identity — identity 
both in the purposes which take the things and in the objective 
processes which are taken. Unless we can take the same 
processes over again and thus predict their recurrence, we 
cannot speak of things. In a world of absolute flux, not even 
the illusion of a thing could arise. This persistence or possi- 
biUty of identification of certain processes is the pragmatic 
significance of substance, whatever fleeting changes we may 
have to ignore in our conceptual taking of reality. As the 
thing is capable of existing in many contexts, and as it may 
have different reactions in different contexts, the idea of po- 
tential energy arises. The potential, or the core of the thing, 
is the more of what the thing can do. The air can produce 
sound. It can also furnish the prairie dust storm, it can convey 
oxygen to the lungs, etc. As the contexts are not present, 
perhaps, for doing all these things at once, we speak of the 
others as possible reactions — the (for the time being) hidden 
energy of the thing. 

In the second place, these expectancies or ways of taking the 
thing are social. Things do not merely figure in my individual 
experience, but they are capable of figuring in any number of 
experiences in the same immediate way. They fulfill not 
merely an individual, but a social, purpose. One reason for 
regarding social experience as more trustworthy is that social 
experience is less subject to illusions and hallucinations. While 
this is largely so and therefore furnishes an additional check, 
illusions and hallucinations may be social for the time being. 
The illusion of the moving railroad train is as social as any 
perception. A whole crowd has been known to see a ghost. 
So being social is not an infaUible test of objectivity. As such 
perceptions, however, do not tally with further experiences, 
they cannot be taken as things. Whether we deal with things, 
therefore, from the point of view of individual or of social ex- 
perience, our ideas of things can only be proven true as expe- 
rience leans upon further experience in a consistent way. 

It has sometimes been stated that things are objective, be- 



DO THINGS EXIST? 73 

cause they are objects for several subjects. But this is invert- 
ing the true relation. Things are social experiences, because 
they hang in a context of their own and are not dependent 
upon individual experience for their existence. Things, more- 
over, are not the only objects of social experience. It is not 
true that our psychological objects are objects of one subject 
only as contrasted with things. If so, we could have no psycho- 
logical sciences. We could never understand each other's 
meanings or their relations. The fact is that we can share 
each other's images, concepts, and even emotions, and will 
attitudes, as truly as our sense facts. The oldest sciences 
man created were sciences of meaning, such as logic, geometry, 
and ethics. It is absurd, then, to say that mental facts exist 
for one subject only — are private and unique. It is not their 
social character which distinguishes things from meanings. 

Besides social agreement, we must add, therefore, sensible 
continuity as characteristic of our taking of things. Things 
are the sensible embodiments of purposes. They have a cer- 
tain " liveliness " thai our meanings as such, however social, 
do not ordinarily haVe. They are energies which we must 
recognize as belonging to a space context of their own, with 
their own steadiness and order, independent of our meanings. 
It is not that we, either in our individual or our social capacity, 
do acknowledge things, which makes things objective, but that 
we must acknowledge them, and that we must acknowledge 
them as having such a sensible character, such motion, such 
use in the realization of our specific purposes. Our ideas must 
terminate in the sensible things in order to be vahd. We may 
select them in our service, we may spread them out into our 
classificatory schemes, we may symbolize their relations by 
our equations ; but we can do so successfully only by respect- 
ing their own character and relations as revealed in experience. 
We must beUeve, moreover, that the substance of things is 
precisely what we must take it as in experience. If radium 
breaks down and changes into helium, no assumption of inert 
matter, no postulate of substance, can guarantee its identity. 
The only key we have to reality is what reahty must be taken 
as in the progressive reahzation of the purposes of human 
nature. 



CHAPTER V 
Knowing Things 



In dealing with things as known, we place ourselves at once 
at the pragmatic point of view — things as they must be 
taken in our systematic experience. In other words, we try 
to unlock the reality of things by means of their quahties, as 
we must adjust ourselves to them. This pragmatic way of 
taking things has at least the advantage of convenience. It 
is the only approach, whether it is the whole truth or not. 
And by qualities we mean the constant and describable ways 
in which we must take nature in its concrete contexts. They 
are differentiated and made significant through the specific 
conduct which we must adopt in varying situations, — sen- 
sory, chemical, electrical, etc. They are diverse or homogeneous 
just in so far as we must take them as such. 

We must distinguish the relation of a thing to its qualities 
from other forms of diversity and unity. ^ We must not con- 
fuse qualities with logical consequences, which exist only as 
part of a cognitive context; nor must we confuse qualities 
with the species of a genus, for the qualities cannot be regarded 
as existing individually apart from their complex. We can- 
not regard the qualities as effects of the thing, because the 
thing apart from the qualities is a mere abstraction. We 
cannot regard the qualities as external parts of a whole, be- 
cause the qualities only exist as interpenetrating in one dynamic 
context. The thing is not the sum of our abstractions, such as 
independent qualities would have to be. Nor are the qualities, 
as sometimes stated, the behavior of the thing; they must 

* See in this connection a suRgestive monograph, "Oin Egenskapcn," by a 
Swedish philosopher, Pontus Wikner, whom I count as one of the noblest 
thinkers of my native land. 

74 



KNOWING THINGS 75 

include how the thing can behave under definite conditions as 
well as its actual behavior. They are not the behavior in the 
abstract, but what a thing must be taken as, or acknowledged, 
in its specific conduct. Qualities are not inert ideas, as Berkeley 
supposes, but energies that can be tapped under definite con- 
ditions. 

Qualities are not merely the actual, but also the potential 
energies of things, their possible differences to other contexts. 
When we see the diamond, we expect it also to cut glass, though 
the visual qualities do not cut glass. Where the conception of 
quahty becomes particularly significant is just in connection 
with the potential behavior of the thing — what it can do in 
other contexts. If all the reactions of the thing were exhausted 
in the one dynamic situation, if the qualities cohered in one 
simultaneous inseparable blend, we should not have occasion 
to deal with them. We should always deal with such a world 
as consisting of concrete units. 

The theory that consciousness is perspicuous, and does not 
alter the qualities intuited, is true enough, if you mean by 
consciousness the bare character of awareness. But this does 
not mean that qualities are static entities, to be intuited in 
the abstract, as the old dogmatic realism, which has had a 
recent revival, supposes. To regard qualities as abstract in- 
tuitions is equivalent to holding that energies can be intuited 
as at work, when they are not at work. While we can abstract 
our awareness from the energetic continuities, sensory or extra- 
organic, that does not save us the trouble of taking account of 
these specific continuities and giving a definite description of 
them. This is precisely the task of science. While all quali- 
ties are not dependent for their existence upon our sense con- 
tinuities, as we shall show later, we have no way of intuiting 
the qualities of things, except by our awareness of such sense 
continuities. Things by themselves have no properties. They 
cannot even be conceived as having existence, as this is a 
dynamic relation — the difference which a fact makes to a con- 
text, including in the case of perception the context of our sense 
energies. And qualities .without contexts are a pragmatic 
contradiction. They are differences which make no difference 
— non-entities. All that realism can insist upon is that our 



76 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

taking account of the qualities — their figuring in our cognitive 
context — does not constitute them. And with this probably 
no one now disagrees. 

As a thing may exist in several contexts at the same time, we 
come to conceive it as having simultaneous as well as successive 
diversity of qualities. Thus a bit of honey may exist in a num- 
ber of sensory contexts at once. We see it, touch it, taste it, 
smell it at the same time. The honey in the meantime is 
undergoing certain physical and chemical changes independent 
of the sensory contexts. And so long as this diversity can be 
attended to at once — fulfills one interest — we do not regard 
it as fatal to the unity of the thing. 

That a thing may have different qualities in different con- 
texts, simultaneous or successive, not only is not contradictory 
but is continually verified by experience. ^ The diiference 
may be in different sense contexts, when different senses ac- 
quaint me simultaneously with the same thing. But the same 
thing may have simultaneously different qualities within the 
same sense domain for different observers. Thus it may appear 
circular to one observer and elliptical to another. It is both 
circular and elliptical at the same time, but not in the same 
context, and hence there is no logical contradiction. That 
we perhaps select the circular shape as our standard is purely 
a matter of convenience. Quality means precisely the possible 
reaction of a thing in such and such a context. 

Is the thing its qualities? In the first place, if we strip the 
thing of its qualities, of its possible reactions, what is left is 
zero — position without content. To try to conceive a surd 
or core as remaining becomes self-contradictory. When we 
try to make clear to ourselves what we mean by such a core, 
we find that it is a certain group of qualities, the conditions 
for the appearance of which are more constant in our experience 
than those of the rest. Thus the conditions for the touch- 
motor qualities are simpler and more often repeated than 
those for the visual qualities. The conditions for such physical 
qualities as gravity and heat conduction must be conceived as 
still more universal. Owing to the law of habit, the qualities 

1 Mr. C, D. Broad, Mind, July, 1912, p. 458, in criticizing my position thinks 
that we have here a contradiction, but he takes qualities as abstract. 



KNOWING THINGS 77 

whose conditions are more constant become the standard of 
reference for those whose conditions are more intermittent. 
They come to constitute for us the substance of the thing. 
No other inteUigible meaning can be given to the conception 
of substrate, if quahties are the ways a thing must be taken in 
its conduct. There can be nothing in the thing not capable, 
theoretically at least, of being shown in its conduct. That 
it is one thing, and not a mere sum of discrete qualities, is it- 
self one of the ways in which we must take a thing. It is 
because qualities can be taken as interpenetrating in one space, 
as fulfilling one purpose, that we speak of one thing. This, 
however, does not preclude us from being interested, in other 
connections, in the diversity of ways in which a thing can be 
taken. No mere mystical coalescence on the part of our states 
of consciousness would destroy the diversity of functions on the 
part of a thing. 

If you identify a thing with its qualities, in the second place, 
you must be careful to include all the possible ways of taking a 
thing. The ways in which things can be taken not only con- 
nect them with our sensory contexts, but also with other con- 
texts, independent of our perception. Their relation to these 
contexts may, for some purposes, be more important than the 
relation to sense. We must learn to take the thing at its face 
value, as the various ways in which it proves itself in its variety 
of contexts, without inventing hidden essences, on the one 
hand, or making abstract entities of our ways of taking things, 
on the other. 

Does human nature create the qualities of things? It is 
true that some qualities, involving a high degree of physiological 
organization, are only present for the perception of man and 
the higher animals, as in the case of color. Our perceptual 
qualities in general do, of course, involve a relation to the 
organism. But this relation is not constituted by the cognitive 
meaning. The perceptual qualities are just as independent of 
the cognitive context as the chemical. It is true, further, 
that we have perceptual illusions. But this is due to no "fak- 
ing" of qualities, but to the fact that qualities can only be 
known through the machinery of complication and association. 
As some qualities may be common to different contexts, it is 



78 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

possible that the sensed qualities may suggest the wrong system 
of associates at any one time, either as the result of habit or 
from the momentary set of attention. Further experience 
shows in such a case that the supplementary qualities thus 
suggested do not coexist with the sensed qualities in the par- 
ticular thing. But this is a problem in our knowing of the 
qualities and does not concern their reality or objective co- 
existence. 

A good deal has been made of late of so-called physical 
illusions, such as the apparent bend of the stick when seen 
in water. What has been neglected here is that in such cases 
we have to do with a complex, and not with a simple, physical 
reaction. The apparent bend of the stick in the water is due 
not to the direct action of light upon the stick but to the phys- 
ical properties of water. These properties, therefore, must be 
allowed for, as they actually are both in physics and in prac- 
tical experience. Even the savage, in spearing fish in the 
water, learned to allow for the refraction of the medium or 
he would not have secured any j&sh. We select the apparent 
shape of the stick in the medium of the air as standard, first, 
because, even before we had discovered any such medium as 
air, the visual properties and the tactual properties under such 
conditions are found to lead to the same practical results; 
and, secondly, because, after discovering air, we find that its 
action can here be ignored for practical purposes. There is 
no more illusion here than in the case of the varieties of visual 
shapes and sizes at various angles of seeing. These are real 
physical qualities. It is convenient, however, in such cases to 
standardize our visual quahties in terms of our tactual, and 
so we ignore the other ''appearances" for ordinary purposes. 
But such standardization is not a question of reaUty, but of 
social convenience. If our purpose is to draw an object in 
a certain perspective, it is precisely the apparent properties 
which become essential. 

As regards our perceptions of distant objects in space, such 
as the stars which appear to our senses, here, too, the difficulty 
disappears when, in the manner of science, we take account of 
the whole situation. The problem in this case is complicated 
by the time aspect of the situation. We have no guarantee, 



KNOWING THINGS 79 

it is true, that the star which we perceive continues to exist, 
in its own spatial context, as we perceive it. But if we qualify 
the perception by its space and time conditions, we have a 
right to say that the object is such as the telescope and spectro- 
scope reveal it to us. 

Again, if our senses were different — if they were grosser 
than they are now or if they were microscopic — the structure 
of things would no doubt appear otherwise than it does. Blood 
seen through a powerful microscope is not the red juice our 
bare senses reveal to us. It consists only in small part of 
colored corpuscles. But we must remember that we are here 
dealing with a different context of reactions. It is still true 
that blood is the kind of thing which we can take as reddish in 
our ordinary sense context. The grosser reaction of the thing 
is as true as the minuter. In each case the properties are 
indisputable so long as we specify the context. The mass 
reactions are as true as the atomic reactions revealed to the 
delicate instruments of Rutherford. In any case, we must 
take the thing as we find it in the specific context of our ex- 
perience. 

That we do not know all the properties of things, owing to 
the limitation of our finite instruments — our senses and our 
artificial instruments — and owing to the indefinite number of 
possible situations, must be admitted. This means relative 
agnosticism; and to this, all honest science must subscribe. 
Yet we may still maintain that our knowledge is of the real, 
so far as it goes; that it approximates reality in our system- 
atic effort for truth, and does not lie in another dimension from 
the object which we attempt to know. The unknown is con- 
tinuous with and interpenetrates the known; and however 
far we may be from knowing all the properties of things in 
their possible contexts, yet the thing can be taken as having 
the properties we do know. Human nature as cognitive does 
not create qualities, though it is an indispensable condition 
for their significance. 

That observed qualities and relations are not invalidated by 
our ignorance of the rest of the quahties is beautifully illustrated 
in the history of the physical sciences. There has been, espe- 
cially since the discovery of radioactive elements, a pretty 



80 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

complete overhauling of our conceptual models of physics and 
chemistry; yet not one empirical formula based upon accu- 
rately observed properties has had to be revised. The same is 
true of the observational and experimental work in the biological 
sciences where new discoveries have proved no less revolution- 
ary. The immense amount of classificatory work done in 
those sciences before Darwin remained undisturbed by the 
Darwinian theory. The discovery of new properties and laws 
has not vitiated our past facts. It has only vitiated some of 
our speculative assumptions. 

Absolute agnosticism, on the other hand, has always main- 
tained that, even though our research were complete as regards 
the seeming nature of things, yet we would be as far from 
knowing the real things as ever. It insists that the thing is 
something different from its apparent qualities, were they all 
known. It is difficult to understand the mental attitude 
impHed in this position. If it means conceiving a thing apart 
from its properties, then what is left is zero, and there is nothing 
mysterious or unknowable about zero. If, on the other hand, it 
means that the thing-in-itself does have properties, but that 
these are different from those which we perceive ; that human 
nature has created the qualities as we have them, and that the 
true qualities could only be perceived by a consciousness 
entirely different from our own, which seems to be Kant's 
position — if such is the assumption, all we can say is that it is 
entirely' gratuitous and has no pragmatic value. In any case, 
the only fruitful method of procedure is to assume that qualities 
are such as we must take them in relation to our systematic 
conduct. The agnosticism of the unconditioned, in the sense 
of a reality outside the matrix of concrete relations, is a fiction 
of the faculty of abstraction. We must hold, on the contrary, 
that reaUty is known in its concrete determinations. And we 
are ever striving to increase our knowledge of things by trying 
them out in new determinate situations. It is by such experi- 
ment and observation that we find the melting point and freezing 
point, the resistance, the complexity, the decomposability, and 
the coherence of the world as we have it. 

Whether the persistence of certain ultimate units, such as 
atoms or electrons, turns out to be more than fiction or not, the 



KNOWING THINGS 81 

reality and persistence of qualities is a sine qua non of science. 
Not only can we predict that a certain set of qualities shall 
make its appearance, with the Aladdin change of conditions, 
but what to me is still more striking, we can predict that cer- 
tain identical qualities shall persist, as a set, through the protean 
transmutation of things, with their characteristic energies. 

Such is the case in chemistry with salts in the wider sense, 
including acids and bases. To quote from Ostwald : "Salts 
are, therefore, characterized by the fact that in solution their 
components give individual reactions which are in each case 
independent of the other component present in the salt. And 
this relation is a reciprocal one; the second component also 
shows its own reactions independent of the first. These 
components of the salts which react independently of one an- 
other are called ionsJ^ ^ This persistence of qualities as 
seemingly individual energies is shown even more strongly in 
the case of biological heredity. The chromosome characters 
of the germ cell, which are now believed to constitute an im- 
portant part of the factors in the transmission of characteristics 
including sex, constitute a qualitative constellation which is 
constant in the particular life form, whether as regards sex or 
species. Mendel's law formulates in general how the " unit 
characters" appear in the reproduction of individuals. "The 
essential feature of Mendel's law is briefly this : hereditary 
characters are usually independent units which segregate out 
upon crossing, regardless of temporary dominance." ^ Mendel, 
in his experiments on garden peas, found that in crossing tall 
peas and dwarf peas, the offspring would all tend to be tall. 
This held true irrespective of the sex of the tall parent, show- 
ing that the character of tallness was independent of sex. 
Mendel called the character which appeared in the first gener- 
ation, the dominant, and the one that was latent, the reces- 
sive. In crossing the offspring, the progeny would consist of 
tails and dwarfs in the proportion of three to one; but of 
these tails only one proved to be pure. The other two, 
when crossed, would reproduce the proportions obtained in 

' Ostwald, "Principles of Inorganic Chemistry" (1902), English translation, 
p. 189. 

2 "Genetics," H. E. Walter, New York, 1914. 



82 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

interbreeding the results of the first cross. If interbreeding 
between the different strains is prevented, the tendency will 
be for the original characters to assert themselves, and the 
number of individuals with a blend of characters in their 
germ plasm, such as obtains Lin the impure tall strain, will 
become reduced in proportion to the numbers of those bearing 
the original characters in pure form. In the case of crosses be- 
tween certain species, the intactness of the original characters 
is provided for by the sterility of the hybrid carrying the blend 
of those characters, as in the case of the mule. Thus the origi- 
nal characters tend to reappear intact, and the race in the 
long run would tend to run pure. The problem, it is true, is 
more complex than Mendel foresaw. Thus the relation of 
dominant and recessive is not an invariable one. In some 
cases both strains assert themselves equally in the first gener- 
ation. Moreover, it is not always possible to segregate single 
characters, as Mendel supposed. Sometimes two characters are 
linked and act as one. But for all that, the Mendelian conception 
of unit characters is highly convenient in deaUng with heredity. 

The characters or qualities thus constitute the pragmatic 
significance of the thing. And if science can abstract the char- 
acters or qualities so as to predict the behavior of nature in its 
stages of change and complexity, things are of secondary impor- 
tance. Or rather, the identity of characters is for science the 
substance. Even the chemical elements have fallen into a 
^'natural series " on the basis of identical characters. Whether 
these elements prove ultimate or not, the qualities and the 
predictions based upon them remain as of prime importance 
in conceptual description. We must start with qualities and 
hold the individuals, as far as we can, in the net of our identities. 
Concrete individuals, on the other hand, seem to come and go. 
They probably never quite repeat themselves. What is 
predictable are the recurrent qualities — the karma as the 
Buddhists called it, in the case of moral qualities. 

While this abstract view of qualities, however, is convenient 
in our ignorance in unlocking the secrets of nature, we cannot re- 
gard it as metaphysically final. In reality there are not "unit 
characters," as Mendel calls recurrent qualities, but dynamic 
situations hanging together by means of certain overlapping 



KNOWING THINGS 83 

identities. Thus it has been shown by Professor E. B. Wilson 
that chromosome characters are not sufficient by themselves 
to determine heredity, but we must take account as well of the 
potentials of the protoplasmic context in which they exist, 
though of course this would not prevent our having predict- 
ability by taking account of the chromosome characters alone, the 
protoplasmic conditions remaining practically the same. The 
whole concreteness of the situation is not necessary for predic- 
tion. If it were, we could not have science. For ethical and 
aesthetic purposes, again, the individuals, whether transient 
or permanent, may have final and eternal significance. 

Finally, the fundamental law of the thing, as of the self, is 
interpenetration. This is the only a priori law of substance. 
Unless the mind were so constituted as to locate in each other's 
space those qualities which fulfill one interest, figure in one 
attention kct, there could be no such process as learning by 
experience. Suppose that Bergson were right that the funda- 
mental law of the material world is juxtaposition, side-by- 
sideness of images, the spatial spreading out of impressions 
like the record of the cinematograph or of the plate of the 
gyroscope. In such a world we should have hopeless chaos. 
Such unities as things could never arise in perception and 
consequently there could be no practical adjustment to our 
world. The intellect would be a useless instrument at best, 
an anomaly in such a world. What is exclusive is the old 
mechanical model of atoms which is fast breaking down. 
What is absolutely fixed-are our mathematical symbols. Fixity 
in the world-as-experienced is a relative and approximate 
affair, not something we can take for granted. What has been 
emphasized by the electrical conception is precisely this inter- 
penetration of energies in the so-called atom, the durcheinander, 
and not the juxtaposition of qualities. The atoms must be 
conceived, not as impenetrable entities, but as more or less 
stable dynamic clusters within dynamic systems. Even the 
negative electric charge, if it should turn out to be a final 
entity, exists primarily in interpenetration with other elements. 
At any rate this conception, whether its symbolism is final or 
not, has taught us that energetic interpenetration and over- 
lapping characterize the ultimate constitution of our world. 



84 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

If we speak of interpenetration as an a priori law of our 
perception, we do not mean it is an arbitrary law. Mind, 
in its long survival history, has been shaped on things. This 
is what makes it practical. The law of interpenetration is 
convenient just because it enables us to meet the actual world 
as ascertained by experiment and as fulfilling the requirements 
for action. 

II 

Having now defined in general the nature of qualities, I wish 
to say a word about the problem of their relative importance. 
The distinction between primary and secondary qualities is an 
ancient one. There have been several reasons for making some 
qualities more important than others. One reason offered 
in the past is the mode of intuition. The primary qualities 
are suppposed to be immediately intuited, according to such 
writers as Thomas Reid, while the secondary qualities are 
supposed to be due to our sense reactions. To use Reid's own 
language, "Our senses give us a direct and distinct notion of 
the primary qualities, and inform us what they are in them- 
selves : but of the secondary qualities, our senses give us only 
a relative and obscure notion. They inform us only that they 
are qualities which affect us in a certain manner." ^ According 
to this theory the primary qualities would be not only copies 
but identical with reality, while secondary quahties are only 
ways in which the primary qualities affect our sensibilities. 
Thomas Brown, however, already recognized that there is no 
essential difference between qualities so far as the mode of 
perception goes. ''I cannot discover anything in the sensations 
themselves, corresponding with the primary and secondary 
qualities, which is direct, as Dr. Reid says, in one case and rela- 
tive in the other. All are relative in his sense." ^ They are all 
alike in being reactions of our organism upon the selected stimuli. 
Nor is there anything inherently depraved about sense that 
would make qualities subjective or unreal, just because they 
are sensed. 

Again, qualities that are perceived by means of a number 

* " On the Intellectual Powers," Essay II, § 17. 

• "Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind," 1828, pp. 253 f. 



KNOWING THINGS 85 

of senses have been thought to have a superior reality to those 
perceived only through one sense. Thus form, size, position, 
and motion are perceived by sight and touch alike. But solid- 
ity, which has figured as one of the most important of the 
primary qualities, can only be had by means of the sense of 
active touch. So perception by a number of senses cannot 
be all-important. 

It has been argued again that the more generic sense qualities 
are more real than the more specific ones. Because the generic 
sense quaUties lend themselves best to mathematical descrip- 
tion, it has been supposed that they come nearest to giving us 
the reality of nature. Secondary qualities on the whole are 
due to greater speciaUzation of our sense organs and have 
seemed to be more subjective. But it is a fact that some of the 
generic qualities do not seem to figure high in the scale of in- 
formation. Thus pain and temperature are among the most 
generic of our sense quahties, but they have not been recognized 
as belonging to the primary list. Because the conditions for 
the manifestation of the qualities are complex, it does not 
follow that the qualities are less real. The conditions for the 
making available of electrical properties are exceedingly com- 
plex, but we do not on that account doubt the reahty of elec- 
tricity. 

Again, quahties have been deemed subjective or objective 
according to their clearness or distinctness to the attention. 
The primary qualities, according to Descartes, are clear and 
distinct, while the secondary qualities are held to be confused. 
But according to this, color and tone would rank at the head 
of the Hst, because there we can distinguish more qualities 
and arrange them in a serial order with greater success than we 
can in the other senses. This is especially true of color, where 
the largest range of qualitative discrimination and arrangement 
is possible ; but neither color nor tone was included in the old 
list of primary quahties, though they permit of the greatest 
analysis. 

More convincing is the argument based on their value for 
prediction. The primary qualities, according to Locke, are 
constant and inseparable while the secondary quahties vary. 
While this is true, to a certain extent, shape, extension, and 



86 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

weight cannot be regarded as invariably present in the physical 
objects with which we must deal. We cannot speak of electric- 
ity, for example, as having either shape, extension, or weight. 
These qualities, therefore, cannot be regarded as universal, as 
Locke would have us think. On the other hand, the qualities 
just mentioned are only constant when conditions are the same. 
In this respect, therefore, they have no particular advantage 
over the so-called secondary qualities. Mass varies with 
temperature and with pressure, and it has been shown recently 
to vary with velocity. Velocity approaching that of light has 
been found to increase the apparent mass. But that qualities 
differ under different conditions certainly does not indicate 
any subjectivity. If so, we would have to conclude with 
Berkeley that all quahties are subjective. Constancy for 
science always means repetition under determinate conditions. 

One reason for the distinction between primary and secondary 
qualities has doubtless been the confusion between qualities 
and values. The so-called secondary qualities have been 
rejected in part, no doubt, because of their affective tone. This 
affective tone is especially prominent in connection with such 
quahties as those of taste or smell. But Aristotle, long ago, 
pointed out that touch may be the most sensuous of the senses, 
and therefore carry the most violent organic tone. We would, 
therefore, have to reject touch as well as taste. In fact, we 
would have to reject most of our sense qualities. 

Evidently, one difficulty in making up the classical primary 
list, which for the most part remains approved, was the lack of 
scientific knowledge. Thus the old Ust fails to include weight, 
which has since come to be regarded as one of the most important 
of the descriptive qualities. The old theory of primary quali- 
ties, moreover, presupposes the impact theory of physical 
changes, and so emphasizes extensive mass as fundamental 
and universal. This will have to be revised in the light of 
our more recent knowledge of electricity and radioactivity. 
Such energies have brought to light a whole list of descriptive 
properties which were unthought of in the old catalogue. 
Certainly, impact would be far too gross a method of describing 
these reactions. 

Whatever basis we can find for distinction, as to the impor- 



KNOWING THINGS 87 

tance of qualities, it is clear that any such basis must be relative, 
not absolute. It is relative to the purpose in question. What is 
primary for one purpose may be quite secondary for another 
purpose. Thus the importance of the mechanical qualities is 
quite secondary for aesthetic purposes, while color and tone 
become of very great importance. Qualities must he considered 
as objective, if they enable us to identify and predict the things 
with which we must deal. , And in this the so-called secondary 
qualities may be fully as important as the so-called primary. 
Locke himself, in giving us the description of gold, does not fail 
to mention its yellowness. In the identification of a gas, the 
odor may be of the greatest importance. In identifying a solu- 
tion, as a saline solution, the sense of taste may be worth 
all the rest. Qualities are objective just in so far as we must 
take them as objective. If they do not help us to identify an 
object, they can no longer be called qualities. They must be 
reckoned on the side of value. 

Some qualities can be taken as existing independently of the 
reaction of the human organism, though of course they must 
make a difference to the context of perception, too, in order to 
be known. This, however, is secondary in importance to their 
reactions in other contexts. Thus, we have more confidence in 
weight as determined by the mechanical scales than when indi- 
cated by our sensory quality of strain. For the purpose of 
science we must determine our conduct with reference to weight 
as fixed by scales. In determining temperature we place more 
reliance on the thermometer than on the sensory differences of 
hot and cold. And so in regard to size, we have more confidence 
in size as determined by certain standard measures which are 
kept under artificial conditions than we have when we depend 
on sensory qualities. We must take some qualities as existing 
in contexts of their own, independent of the organism. This 
fact is doubtless what has given rise to the conception of primary 
qualities, and what makes Locke speak of these as archetypes 
which we copy, though even from this point of view there is 
not complete consistency, as can be seen in the case of heat and 
weight, which do not occur in Locke's primary list. The rela- 
tion, however, is not that of copying. In fact, cognitively, 
the sensory differences would necessarily come first. The 



88 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

relation is rather that we can take the quahties which are sensed 
as identical with the quahties in other contexts, for example, 
that of the scales. 

Such qualities as color or taste, on the other hand, must be 
taken as requiring specialized organic conditions. While the 
light waves have qualities in other contexts, such as revealed by 
the camera film and various pigments, these are not the quahties 
of the sensible context of color. It does not at all follow, 
however, that because some qualities can only exist in the 
specialized context of certain sense organs that they are there- 
fore subjective. Because we can only get water under the 
condition of HoO, it does not follow that water is subjective. 
The context of our retina, with its rods and cones, in connection 
with light rays, is just as real a context and just as independent 
of our will as that of any other chemical or physical reactions. 

There is only one meaning, so far as I can see, in which we 
could speak of subjective qualities. And that is, if we speak 
of having qualities as itself a quahty. Thus some would say 
that the sky has the quality of having the quality, blue. In 
this case we can easily suppose an infinite series, because the 
quality of having qualities can be repeated on itself any number 
of times that imagination chooses to conjure. Obviously this 
is a purely subjective process — a creation of intellectual 
abstraction. It does not add anything to the existence of 
qualities. 

Any quality may be treated as a sign or secondary to other 
qualities for the specific purpose in question. Thus visual 
quahties may be treated as secondary to tactual and these again 
to chemical, when the purpose is the satisfaction of hunger. 
But for the purpose of enjoying a painting or reading a book, 
the tactual quahties become signs or secondary, for the normal 
person, to the visual. In space perception, touch may serve 
to call up a sight map and this in turn to suggest motor sensa- 
tions. 

In any case, when we are dealing with qualities we are not 
concerned with the relation of a thing to consciousness, but with 
its relation to a determinate energetic context, whether that be 
physiological or physical. Quahties are certain permanent ex- 
pectancies which we can have with reference to things under 



KNOWING THINGS 89 

definite conditions. The purpose in question, whether mechan- 
ical or economic or aesthetic, must decide the importance of the 
quahties so far as that particular context is concerned. All 
qualities, in so far as they are qualities, must be taken as real. 
Their acknowledgment is a forced acknowledgment. 

Ill 

There has been a tendency ever since Berkeley to confuse 
sensations and sense qualities, and on account of this confusion 
to insist upon the subjective character of the sense qualities 
and all qualities. Now, it is quite true that, in order to become 
significant, qualities must become a part of the context of our 
cognitive experience; but this does not prove that qualities 
have no other status than that of experience. Berkeley, we 
all admit, is wrong in supposing that, in knowing the qualities, 
the observer, whether human or superhuman, creates them. 
Qualities, we have seen, have their own energetic contexts, 
whether in relation to our organism or independent of it. We 
must take account of the changes of nature, its growth and decay, 
quite irrespective of whether we are conscious of it or not. 
Berkeley, on the other hand, truly states the relation of qualities 
to our cognitive attitudes. "To explain the phenomena is 
all one as to Show why, upon such and such occasions, we are 
affected with such and such ideas." ^ But he is not warranted 
on that account in saying that the qualities are nothing but 
ideas. This is confusing the causa cognoscendi, or the reason 
for our knowing, with the causa essendi, or the reason for exist- 
ence. 

Taking a content as a quality, moreover, and taking it as a 
pure sensation are two entirely different attitudes. Taking it 
as a sensation means the bare awareness for a subjective inter- 
est, without relation to an objective context, while taking it as a 
quality means taking it as a part of a specific context, fulfilling 
a purpose. Taking yellow as a sensation or having a yellow 
consciousness is a different attitude from yellow as a quality, 
as in recognizing gold as yellow. Whether there ever exists in 
experience a pure sensation, we will not argue here, but the 
logical distinction is none the less clear. The reference or 

1 "Principles of Human Knowledge," § 50. 



90 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

attitude is quite different in the two cases. We can never 
say, therefore, that our sensations constitute the thing. Calhng 
them sensations already indicates that they are taken in the 
context of a subjective interest, apart from the context of things. 
What is objective is the sensible qualities — the qualities as 
perceived and as they must be taken again under similar condi- 
tions. A sense quality is not a pure sensation, but conditions 
the selective interest and remains independent of its variations. 
Things are never merely sensed. Qualities are qualifications 
of a certain interest in the world as sensed. Thus we qualify 
our interest in the thing, chair, by the way it appears to the 
touch and the way it appears to sight, and to various other 
senses. We never make the mistake of eating or clothing 
ourselves with sensations, but we deal with things as sensed. 
Part, at least, of Berkeley's convincingness Hes in his playing 
between things as perceptions and things as perceived. 

Furthermore, sensations persist after the sensible continuities, 
which make us attribute them to things, no longer exist. This 
can be seen in complication — the sensory revival, which gives 
us the concrete perceptual object, on the reestablishing of 
sensible continuity ; in illusion, where the wrong sensory com- 
plex is stimulated; or in hallucination, where the sensory 
context is intraorganically reexcited. In all these cases of 
the revival of sensory elements, we must distinguish between 
their existence as subjective states and their being taken as 
qualities of things. Sensations can be taken as qualities only 
in so far as they are actually or signify sensible continuities. 
As such sensible continuities they can be taken twice, i.e. as 
figuring as part of the sensed object and as figuring in the con- 
text of our interest. But it is the identical quality which 
figures in the two contexts. To the sensations, as persisting 
as sensory elements after the stimulus, we may apply Professor 
Stout's term of "psychic existents." But this merely signifies 
that they have a locus within the context of interest. They 
still remain physical facts. And, in perceptual assimilation, they 
still figure as qualities of the thing. The ice looks cold and hard. 
■ Some sensations are not normally taken as sense qualities. 
Some sensations, for example, inform us, not of qualities 
primarily, but of relations. Thus, the joint sensations, the 



KNOWING THINGS 91 

sensations of the semicircular canals, the sensations of con- 
traction and expansion of muscles and tendons, though they 
contribute a great deal to our consciousness of space relations, 
do not ordinarily inform us about any new qualities of the 
things involved. Other sensations, again, like the organic 
sensations in the more specific sense, such as hunger, thirst, 
sex, nausea are so vague and so fused with the feelings that they 
do not inform us about the objects, but about the way in which 
the objects affect the welfare of our organism. They, there- 
fore, come to enter as a part of our sense of value, instead of 
being taken as qualities of the thing. It seems, however, 
that the organic sensations do contribute a certain coefficient 
of existence, in the sense of presence, which may be regarded as 
qualifying the object. In such sensations as those of taste or 
smell, the accompanying affective tone seems the more impor- 
tant part of the situation. 

Again, it is indifferent to some qualities that they may be 
sensed. Of these, the sense quahties may be regarded as signs. 
The reality of such qualities we take to be their existence in the 
extra-organic context. Our consciousness or perception of the 
explosion does not make the explosion occur, though it indicates 
the connection of the explosion with our sensible experience 
andlso makes it significant to us. The knife in the drawer 
grows rusty and loses its sharpness, though we have not per- 
ceived it in the meantime. The chemical changes in such cases 
must be interpolated by ourselves, when we establish sensible 
continuity with the thing. Our physical instruments are often 
far more sensitive to certain changes than our gross senses. 
Where the senses, even when equipped with telescopes, fail 
to see stars, the more sensitive film of the camera still records 
them and makes it possible for us to count them. A large 
part of the qualities of nature we must take account of in this 
a 'posteriori fashion. Our taking account of the coexistence of 
qualities does not make either the coexistence or the qualities. 
The intellect, while a coupling agency, fulfills its function, not 
when it couples arbitrarily, as Kant would have us believe, 
for then we have illusions, but when it couples in such a way 
that our conjunctions tally with the conjunctions of qualities 
as ascertained through experience. 



CHAPTER VI 

Knowing Things {Continued) 

Things and Relations 

The problem of relations is one of the most controversial 
in the history of thought. It will be impossible here to enter 
into these controversies in detail. We shall touch on them 
only in so far as they throw light upon the exposition of the 
problem itself. And in this exposition we must limit ourselves 
to a few fundamental considerations. At the very outset we 
are struck by the fact that the status of relations is a matter of 
considerable confusion. Those who start with the conception 
of a heterogeneous manifold, whether sensations or physical 
elements, naturally look upon relations as accidental. It has 
been held by some, notably Kant and Herbart, that relations 
are subjective additions to our world. We are supposed to 
start with simple sensations or simple qualities ; and the mind 
is supposed to synthesize these by means of certain categories 
of its own such as space, time, and causality. Now it is true 
that, in our weaving the facts of experience into our appercep- 
tive systems, certain subjective elements enter in. Our space 
orientations are made, first of all, with reference to our organ- 
ism, as the center of its world. Nearer and farther, right and 
left, up and down, have their basis in the kinsesthetic sensations 
of the organism and its adjustments to meet its individual needs. 
Our consciousness of the immediate duration of intervals de- 
pends, for shorter intervals, upon certain sensations of atten- 
tion strain, and, for longer intervals, upon certain rhythmic 
organic functions such as digestion. Our indirect dating of 
events as before or after is likewise due in the first instance to 
our subjective interest which arranges events in a personal 
series. Our number consciousness, in like maimer, has its 

92 



KNOWING THINGS 93 

start in certain subjective processes of counting and thus 
bringing objects, which are perhaps innocent of any number 
order, into an order of our own, as first, second, third, etc. 
Causahty means, in the first instance, a certain consciousness 
of control over our bodily movements and the manipulation 
of external things through them ; and we naively read into the 
world outside of our organism a similar type of agency. Our 
quantitative and qualitative series have their root in certain 
practical interests. These condition the measure of our quanti- 
ties and the basis of selection for our quahtative order. But 
while it is true that our consciousness of relations has its start 
in our subjective interests, it is not true that these constitute 
arbitrarily the relations thus taken account of. In our social 
interactions, we learn to abstract from what is peculiar to our 
personal interests and to recognize relations that are valid for 
all of us. We construct a common world of spatial distances, 
temporal sequences, causal expectancies, numerical diversity, 
quantitative and quahtative identities and differences. The 
units of measurement and the starting point of our ordering 
are conventional enough. But, in any case, our mental proc- 
esses relate to concrete complexes in which the relations are as 
real as the quahties or ensembles of qualities which we abstract 
as terms. 

Instead of starting from the learning process, and regard- 
ing relations as subjective because, in order to be known, they 
must come to figure in the contexts of our interests, Bradley ^ 
and others have started from logical considerations to impugn 
the reality of relations. Here, too, the difficulty will be found 
in certain initial assumptions. If we start with abstract unre- 
lated terms, we may find it difficult to furnish any cement 
which will hold the terms together. By a trick of language, 
Bradley, at the outset, substantiates the relations into things. 
He then argues that in order for the relations to unite the terms, 
they must either have something in common with the terms to 
be related, or be wholly diverse from them. In the former case, 
what they have in common would have to fall apart from what 
is diverse. Otherwise we would have mere identity. We are 
therefore left with the second horn of the dilemma ; and however 

1 "Appearance and Reality," Ch. III. 



94 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

we proceed in our attempted synthesis, reality must always 
disintegrate into mere diversity. To take a concrete example : 
if you say that the book is on the table, then the relation on 
would itself have to be taken as an abstract entity, and it 
would be necessary, in turn, to relate this to the table and the 
book and to repeat this process indefinitely. It would follow 
that the book could not possibly be conceived as being on the 
table.i 

To obviate this embarrassing dilemma, Royce proposes to 
accept the problem as stated by Bradley at its face value, but 
to seek the solution in the concept of an infinite series. We 
have no quarrel with infinite series. They are creatures of 
definition and no doubt exist in the world of conceptual con- 
struction. The concept of infinite series signifies merely 
that we can conceive collections where a part can be put into 
a one-to-one correspondence with the whole. That holds 
true in the logical concept of number. Our contention here is 
merely that the hypothesis is irrelevant. Bradley's dilemma 
would not be affected any more by an infinite than a finite 
regress. It contains no law or order which points to a limit. 
It can only be resolved by an examination of the initial assump- 
tion which seems to be false. We are not given abstract terms 
or abstract relations as the units of experience. Terms and 
relations are pragmatic. They are our emphases in the service 
of the dominant interest for the time being. The real units 
of reality are neither terms nor relations, but energy systems 
from which the terms and relations are intellectual abstractions. 

The relations, moreover, as we know them in our real world, 
are finite relations. The series of grays which we can discrimi- 
nate, in the case of our light sensations, are a definite number, 
dependent upon certain psychophysical conditions. The 
camera may distinguish still other shades which lie outside 
the sensitiveness of our retina; but it, too, distinguishes a 
definite number, conditioned by its peculiar structure. Even 
in the case of infinite series, the relations upon which the law 
of the series is based are finite. ^ Bradley is quite right that 
relations are meaningless when taken as pure abstractions. 

1 See James' criticism of Bradley, "Essays in Radical Empiricism," Ch. III. 

2 See "Truth and Reality," pp. 141-145. 



KNOWING THINGS 95 

What could on or in or of or between or distant or before and 
after mean if they were taken as things in themselves? They 
do, nevertheless, have real meaning if taken within their proper 
systems. The book being on the table means something dif- 
ferent from its being under the table. If we would understand 
further how the book can be on the table, we must take account, 
not merely of the space system of relations, but of the physical 
system with the properties implied. If table and book were 
liquids instead of solids, it might be impossible for the book 
to stay on the table. Alcohol will not stay on water; the 
two mix, which, however, is not the case with oil and alcohol. 
To ascertain, therefore, whether certain relations are contra- 
dictory to reality, we must investigate empirically the nature of 
the particular complex. The intellect finds nothing contradic- 
tory about this procedure unless it has been debauched by a 
false metaphysics. Nor is it clear why aesthetics should possess 
a superior type of solvency to that of science. Esthetic sys- 
tems do, indeed, furnish a certain type of unity which can be 
taken at its face value wherever realized, but this is no sub- 
stitute for an intelligent understanding of our world. And 
aesthetic unities, too, are capable of being translated into logi- 
cal terms without dirempting their aesthetic reality. For our 
practical purposes, it remains true that Chicago is so many 
miles west of New York ; that childhood and youth with their 
unique characteristics precede maturity and old age, rather 
than the opposite; that our comparisons of similarities and 
differences, our causal expectancies, our quantitative and 
qualitative ordering, our numerical distinctions, our syntheses 
into things and persons, are relevant to the world with which 
we deal. It is in this relevancy that their convenience lies 
for our practical or logical procedure. 

Another tendency goes to the opposite extreme and would 
state things and qualities entirely in terms of abstract rela- 
tions. For this type of attitude, the terms are constituted by 
the relations, and their reality lies in being intersection points 
of relations. This attitude hearkens back to Schelling's 
philosophy of identity, where subjective and objective entities 
are supposed to be equally neutral — determined purely by 
their logical context. As recently stated, the theory is the 



96 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

outcome of a certain extreme type of intellectualism which 
would deal with reality after the pattern of mathematics and 
deduce its variety from a few simple postulates.^ It has 
transferred the ambiguity of mathematics as regards the exist- 
ence of terms to the conception of reality in general. In geome- 
try it is true that we can start either with points as determining 
lines, or we can start with lines as determining points. The 
ambiguity here is not real so long as we make definite our initial 
postulates. The terms and the relations are alike constituted 
by the type of geometry which we choose to have, whether a 
point geometry or a line geometry or some other kind. They 
are predicative functions within the system which we select 
or posit. Their simphcity and complexity are determined by 
their function within the system. Thus points may be regarded 
as uniquely simple when conceived as determining the direc- 
tion of a line. They may be regarded as infinitely complex 
when conceived as the intersection loci of an infinite num- 
ber of lines. But in any case they can be conceived to exist 
only within a system, as uniquely determined by its postu- 
lates. No blame attaches, therefore, to geometry within its 
own domain. 

Neutralism in metaphysics seems to owe its plausibility to 
its playing upon an ambiguity, at one time translating entities 
into relations and at another, relations into entities, without 
adhering to any definite set of postulates. When the rela- 
tions are made the center of regard, the entities come to seem 
neutral. Instead of realizing that such emphasis is pragmatic, 

1 This movement, which in this country has gone under the name of "the 
new realism," seems to have found its inspiration in Bertrand Russell's "The 
Principles of Mathematics." It found a conflicting expression in the composite 
authorship of "The New Realism, " 1912 ; but its extreme and most consistent 
statement is furnished by Edwin B. Holt's "The Concept of Consciousness, " 
1914. Russell's own theory, as found in his later work, Russell and White- 
head's "Principia Mathematica," makes entities "predicative functions," which, 
so far as I can understand it, would be similar to the pragmatic view. R. B. 
Perry, in his "Present Philosophical Tendencies," 1912, takes a compromise 
position, emphasizing the externality of the cognitive relation. The concep- 
tion of neutralism, which characterizes the above movement, has been greatly 
influenced by William James' essays, "Does Consciousness Exist?" and "A 
World of Pure Experience," first published in the Jour. Phil. Psychol, and Sci. 
Meth., 1904, and since reprinted in "Essays in Radical Empiricism," 1912. 
James in turn had been influenced by Avenarius. 



KNOWING THINGS 97 

convenient for a certain partial purpose, the neutralist makes 
it absolute. Hence he postulates a world compounded out 
of neutrals with no structure or potentialities, but constituted 
solely by relations. Since such neutrals must be indistinguish- 
able, they are regarded as simples. The fact is that they are 
nothing at all. The relations have become the only reality. 
The terms or substantives have been exhausted in the relations. 
The former are so completely internal that they cannot point 
to possibilities in other contexts. Not even the grin remains of 
the metaphysical cat. Or at any rate, it is supposed to be purely 
a function of position. But a world compounded of neutrals 
could give us no mosaics. It could give us nothing at all. 
Reality is known, not in '^ neutral mosaics," but in energy 
systems. In each of these we must observe the unique ensemble 
of properties. We must discover empirically how far certain 
characteristics of the components reappear in a new ensemble, 
and how far the new ensemble has unique characteristics of its 
own. The potentialities can never be said to be exhausted in 
any one system. They are practically infinite in the possible 
qualitative and quantitative variations of our world. It is 
this aspect of potentiality which gives pragmatic significance 
to the terms thing and substance. 

If, on the other hand, we conceive the entities as simple and 
absolute, then the relations come to seem neutral and accidental. 
They can make no difference to the terms, the latter remaining 
identical in all the variety of contexts. The external combina- 
tion of the simples in certain numbers and density is deemed 
adequate to account for the complexity of reality as we have 
it. To be sure, if the terms, by hypothesis, equal zero, it is 
hard to see how they could undergo any transformation in 
varying combinations; and if the relations are neutral, too, 
what remains out of which to build a real world with its chang- 
ing variety? As over against such a world of pure abstrac- 
tions, the real world seems to be one of creative synthesis and 
real change. While we must approach reality by means of 
abstraction in trying to predict and control its flow, this always 
leaves something more, and this more constitutes the move- 
ment of the process. We cannot compound our world out of 
abstract universals. Universals are edges, handles by means 



98 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

of which reason lays hold of reality, but they are only service- 
able when they dip again into the concrete situations. Our 
definitions do not constitute reality. They are asymmetrical 
formulae, which, while they imply and lead us to the real situa- 
tions, are but meager abstracts from them. 

The theory of external relations has been restricted by some 
to the experience relation or the relation of interest. It has 
been held that it makes no difference to reality that it figures 
in our mental systems. The knowledge relation, for example, 
is supposed to be neutral. This attitude, again, seems to rest 
on an ambiguity. If what is meant is that the cognitive 
relation does not affect the physical qualities of the things, 
it is in the main true. Our taking account of the gravitational 
system or the combining valencies of chemical elements does 
not, as such, alter these facts. This is not true, however, if 
the knowledge relation has to do with the condition of our own 
organism. The knowledge that we are in a critical condition 
may accelerate the pulse and produce other complications. 
And so we do not always inform the patient of his exact state. 
If what is meant, on the other hand, is that reality would be 
just the same if it were not known, we are manifestly guilty of 
a false abstraction. If reality were not known, one important 
relation would be lacking, viz. that of being known, with all 
that it impUes. The cognitive system is just as real as any 
system. The qualification of interest is a unique qualification 
which cannot be resolved into any other type of relation. 
Hence this relation cannot be abstracted from, without our 
subtracting from reaHty. It makes a real difference to reality 
that it is known or appreciated.^ It is, at the same time, the 
most momentous of all differences. Without the relation of 
interest, reality would be stripped of the whole world of signifi- 
cance, and that is a good deal. Back of the '' new " neutralism 
there lurks an antiquated metaphysics, that of abstract things 
in themselves which are indifferent to contexts. But things 
are what they are known -as in energy systems. Otherwise 
they are intellectual abstractions and no longer real. And 

* F. C. S. Schiller, Dewey and the Chicago School have emphasized the crea- 
tive contribution of the cognitive relation, but do not seem clear as to what it 
contributes or rather as to what it does not contribute. 



KNOWING THINGS 99 

among such systems, the cognitive system as a unique type of 
selective reaction, figures as one. 

If we pass now to the types of relations, we can see again the 
advantage of the pragmatic approach. The tendency of the 
human mind has been to emphasize some types of relations and 
to ignore other types. This has been due partly to tempera- 
ment, but still more to tradition. Thus we find that some 
emphasize static relations to the exclusion of transitive rela- 
tions. While the former type, as for example space relations, 
has its significance in our understanding of reahty, the trans- 
itive relations must not be ignored. Reahty is essentially on 
the wing. Movement, confluence, interpenetration, change 
are of the very tissue of reality. To ignore such relations 
means leaving a dead skeleton on our hands, instead of the 
concreteness and glow of real fife. Others, again, have empha- 
sized the analjrtic as over against the synthetic relations. 
They have been obsessed by the diversities and dissimilarities 
which appear in our experience. Reahty for them has crumbled 
into a granular mass of elements without cement ; and the task 
of knowledge has become correspondingly hopeless. But in 
concrete experience there are the synthetic relations, too — the 
similarities, the fusions, the causal and logical impHcations. 
And these must be taken at their face value as well as the dis- 
continuities. It is not for philosophy to make a world in accord- 
ance with its prejudices, but to make clear the constitution of 
the world as we find it. And here the connective tissue, which 
makes our world hang together, has as much claim as our 
abstract terms. Both are pragmatic distinctions in the serv- 
ice of our adjustments to the world of oiu* experience. Some, 
again, have been fascinated by the more intimate relations, 
the through-and-through relations of logic and aesthetics, and 
they have no patience for the more external relations. Here, 
again, the emphasis is true, so far as it goes. The more intimate 
relations of the logical and aesthetic types are genuinely real. 
But there are some relations which seem relatively accidental 
to the facts of which they take account. Not to speak of the 
mechanical relations in our external world which seem alogical 
to us at any rate, facts in our experience are grouped, through 
our temporary interests, into mosaics of contiguities and simi- 



100 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

larities, in a manner as non-logical as it is irrelevant to their 
objective connections. Witness the topsy-turvy drama of our 
dreams and the motley collection of items in a daily news- 
paper. 

There are certain general types of relations which furnish 
nets for holding together vast masses of facts. Such are the 
space relations, the time relations, the causal relations, and the 
logical relations. The space relations have to do with things 
in space, their spread-outness and arrangement; they do not, 
except indirectly, imply anything about space itself. We 
abstract, as we have seen, from our personal perspectives of 
orientation. We socialize our perceptual relations in terms of 
certain artificial units of measurement, and systematize them 
into certain perspectives on the basis of our Cartesian coordi- 
nates. But however artificial may be our units, and however 
conventional our coordinates, it is the space relations of the 
real world with its pattern of parts that we mean. Again, 
in our temporal relations, we abstract from our individual 
perspectives, with their dependence upon our subjective sense 
of duration and our immediate individual needs. We socialize 
our perspectives in terms of certain standard units, based upon 
objective periodicities, such as the earth-clock or sidereal move- 
ments. Here, again, our units of measurement are pragmatic, 
and our spatializing of temporal sequences into one dimension 
is artificial. But what we mean is a stream of real change and 
real constancy with its nexus of causal and significant depend- 
ence, where we can, in a measure, orient ourselves to the pres- 
ent and future on the basis of the recurrences which we read in 
the past. 

The concept of causality comes down to us from past tradi- 
tion laden with many ambiguities and contradictions. The 
so called cause-and-effect relation has been regarded by some 
as a relation of identity or a symmetrical relation. Like all 
a priori statements, this needs to be scrutinized. It does not 
seem that the effect need necessarily be identical in kind and 
quantity with the conditions called the cause. That seems, 
indeed, to be true in mechanical series, disregarding the loss 
of energy which is dissipated as heat. In the case of chemical 
changes, on the other hand, new properties may appear in the 



KNOWING THINGS 101 

compound which could not have been predicted analytically 
from the components taken separately. Electrical changes, 
again, may give rise to molecular motion or chemical decom- 
position, as well as to further electromagnetic changes. Chemi- 
cal changes seem to give rise to neural changes, and neural 
changes to mental processes ; and yet it does not seem necessary 
to suppose that breadstuff is mind stuff. 

But we can no more assume that cause and effect must be 
identical in space and in time than in kind. Wherever we 
have action conditioned by distance, there must also be a 
difference in the time of the action and the reaction. No 
intelligible conception of energy has been able to avoid a cer- 
tain spatial discreteness of centers. Any medium invented 
in the service of a block continuity must in turn break up into 
discrete impulses in order to account for our actual world. 
Let us leave out of consideration the fictitious ether; for, in 
the words of Poincare, "if it is able to explain everything, this 
is because it does not enable us to decide between the differ- 
ent hypotheses, since it explains everything beforehand. It 
therefore becomes useless." ^ Take for instance, the transmis- 
sion of a charge from one electron to another. "The perturba- 
tion is propagated with a finite velocity ; it, therefore, reaches 
the second electron only when the first has long ago entered 
upon its rest. This second electron, therefore, will undergo, 
after delay, the action of the first, but will certainly at that 
moment not react upon it, since around this first electron 
nothing any longer budges." ^ To use a more concrete illus- 
tration from the same author, take a Hertzian oscillator such 
as is used in wireless telegraphy: "If all the energy issuing 
from our oscillator falls on the receiver, this will act as if it 
had received a mechanical shock, which will represent in a sense 
the compensation of the oscillator's recoil ; the receiver will 
move on, but not at the moment when the oscillator recoils. 
If the energy propagates itself indefinitely without encoimter- 
ing a receiver, the compensation will never occur." ^ One 
thing seems certain : the question of the cause and effect rela- 
tion can no longer be settled a priori, but must be settled by 

1 Popular Science Monthly, Vol. LXX, p. 348. 

2 Ibid. p. 347. 



102 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

experimental evidence. To say that the cause must be identical 
with the effect is as unscientific as that the heavenly bodies 
must move in circles because these are the most perfect figures ; 
or that the universe must be a sphere for the same reason. 

We cannot say a priori whether a certain causal series is re- 
versible or irreversible. In physical science the general assump- 
tion is that changes, except for the dissipation of energy, are 
reversible. This holds in mechanics. It also holds in chem- 
ical transformations where the assumption is that no number 
of step-compounds will affect the final constitution of the com- 
pound in question. In organic and psychological series we 
are not able to predict such reversibility. Again, as regards 
the continuity of the causal series, we cannot read off the steps 
of the series from the characteristics of the initial situation. 
We must plot our curves empirically on the basis of the changes 
as observed. Even in the case of mechanical motion, it has 
been shown that particles moving with a velocity approximat- 
ing that of light, suddenly acquire an increase of mass. In 
the compression of gases, the curve is constant for a certain 
range when a discontinuity appears, due to the atomic struc- 
ture. And so in the compression of solids. It has been shown 
that metals at a temperature approximating absolute zero, 
change in conductivity, the latter becoming here well-nigh 
absolute. Our theories of specific changes, therefore, must 
be based upon the constitution of reality as actually observed. 
On account of the difficulties inherent in metaphysical causa- 
tion, some have treated causality as a purely phenomenal 
affair, based upon the fact of recurrence of perceptions in our 
experience, and the habits of expectancy produced in us. 
According to Hume, all that we observe is a series of discrete 
events having no other connection, of which we can take account 
at any rate, than psychological association. But obviously 
the changes and constancies which we observe in our experience 
must have a basis in the actual facts themselves ; else the causal 
predictions would not be relevant to the world with which we 
must deal. While Hume considers single beadhke events, 
and can discover no stamp of necessary connection upon them, 
it has been suggested that the causal relation must be duadic, 
i.e. we must take account of two events in the sequence, in 



KNOWING THINGS 103 

order to determine the series.^ Others, again, have suggested 
that, since we must take account of two events and their rela- 
tion, the causal series is a triadic affair. In neither case do we 
escape from Hume^s phenomenalism. At best, the concept 
of causality as it has come down to us, is unsatisfactory as an 
explanatory concept. While it is true that it takes time for 
certain changes to take place, it is not the aspect of a series 
of moments or positions which is significant for understanding 
the real nexus of changes ; it is not the moments or perceptual 
events which cause each other, nor do two or more moments 
determine the direction of the real changes. They are snap- 
shots, rather, of the order of real changes, — photographic 
records, as it were, of sequences within the real stream. The 
series of perceptions in the case of an explosion, — the per- 
ception of the dynamite in a certain position, followed by the 
perception of the igniting of the fuse, which in turn is followed 
by the perception of the effects of the explosion, — does not 
explain the event. For this we must understand the char- 
acteristics of the factors involved and their relation to each 
other. 

Science has substituted for the old conception of causality, 
whether occult or phenomenal, the concept of an energy system. 
We are not concerned with a 'priori duadic or triadic abstract 
types, but with certain variables, with their form and recurrence, 
as we find them in concrete dynamic situations. These factors 
constitute what an older metaphysics used to call the ground 
of the change. In the simplest type of energy system, that of 
ordinary kinetic energy, we require three variables which we 
define for practical purposes as constants, viz. mass, space, 
and time, in the combining relation of |MV^. If we wish 
to account for the behavior of falling bodies, we use the constant 
for gravity in the particular locality; we ascertain the height 
from which the body falls, and we measure its velocity in the 
sequence of moments of the temporal order. What is signifi- 
cant here is not that the body occupies the successive positions 
of A — A' — A" — A'", but that we have the constant, 
gravity, acting under certain spatial and temporal conditions. 

1 See the articles by W. H. Sheldon on "A Theory of Causation," Jour. Phil, 
Psychol, and Sci. Meth., 1914. 



104 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

It is this which gives us the law for the whole series of events. 
We might call this particular situation triadic, since it can be 
defined in terms of three variables. But the variables which 
are necessary must be ascertained empirically for each unique 
type of situation. They become more complex for chemical 
compounds, where some eighty different elements with their 
combining properties must be taken into account, in their vary- 
ing quantitative combinations. In the case of electric currents, 
we must take account, not merely of the properties of electricity, 
but of the conductive medium through which it travels. In 
the case of mental processes, we must take account, not merely 
of the variables of mental constitution as conditioned by innate 
and derived tendencies, but of the physiological conditions, and 
of the environmental situation ; so we can see that our system 
here becomes decidedly complex. But the significant aspect 
for us in this connection is that science makes properties its 
starting point. To try to reduce properties in turn to causa- 
tion would involve an endless and useless regress. We may, 
of course, analyze the more complex systems into simpler com- 
ponents. We may find that certain properties of the more 
complex system are not present in the more abstract compo- 
nents ; that they are in some sense, therefore, unique functions 
of the system itself. But that does not make such properties 
less real in the system where we find them. Some of the 
properties of water are unique. They are not characteristics 
of hydrogen or oxygen, but they are none the less real char- 
acteristics of water. Perhaps some day we may be able to 
explain gravity by means of an electrical theory; but in the 
relations in which we now know it, it will remain just as real 
as before. What is essential for explanation is to ascertain 
the properties which are characteristic of the factors as enter- 
ing into a definite system, whether that system be a chemical 
compound or human society. Having found their combining 
form and their degree of recurrence, we can then control the 
situation on the basis of our knowledge. 

Whether, again, changes proceed by infinitesimal increments 
or by finite drops is an empirical matter, and not to be de- 
duced from a priori considerations. The evidence seems now 
to point to definite finite quanta. Nor have we any right to 



KNOWING THINGS 105 

assume an infinite series of changes of a certain type unless we 
deal with a pure abstraction such as Newton's first law of 
motion; and even this we know now holds only for ordinary 
velocities where mass is constant. We cannot predicate abso- 
lute continuity for any concrete series of changes. We cannot 
say, for example, that A' shall differ from A, the preceding 
moment of change, merely in position. How it differs must be 
empirically ascertained. We have had to relearn again and 
again that our formulae hold only for a certain range of tem- 
perature, pressure, and motion. And, as Poincare has pointed 
out, with extreme cosmic changes in these general conditions, 
all our formulae might prove false. They are pragmatic 
merely, and rest upon a certain faith in the practical stability 
of the cosmic system of which we are a part. There is plenty 
of room, therefore, for skepticism if one chooses to indulge 
in it, though the form may be different from the old Humian 
kind. Most of us, however, are willing to five by faith, so 
long as we can approximately find our way in the complex web 
of reality. 

It will be seen now that the old time distinction of cause and 
effect is a purely pragmatic one. It is due to a certain psycho- 
logical emphasis which may be useful for certain purposes, but 
cannot be regarded as a final explanation. Whether we regard 
the hydrogen properties or oxygen properties or temperature 
conditions as the cause of water will be due to the steps which 
we select in our procedure, and our psychological bias. Whether 
we regard the productivity of the soil or the facilities of trans- 
portation or the availabihty of power or the thrift and intelli- 
gence of the people as the cause of a country's prosperity is 
psychological. The real explanation must be found in the 
unique ensemble of the various factors with their properties. 
Cause and effect, therefore, whatever value they may have 
from a provisional point of view, must be understood in terms 
of their ground or the energy system of which they are partial 
emphases. 

Besides the three general types of relations already men- 
tioned, viz. temporal, spatial, and energetic, we must add a 
fourth general type, namely, relations of interest. Our being 
interested in things does liot, so far as we can see, directly 



106 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

alter the physical quaUties of things, but their significance 
depends upon their relation to interest contexts, such as the 
cognitive, aesthetic, and volitional. The interest relations 
may be systematic, as in the working out of our logical, aesthetic 
and economic purposes, or they may be merely additive. Any 
fact can be joined subjectively with any other fact by such 
bonds as and or with or plus or minus or other relations of ex- 
ternal interest. We must remember, however, that these rela- 
tions whether additive or systematic, do not affect the existence 
of our external sense-things and their properties. Things 
may exist in a double location : they may exist in their own 
physical contexts, and at the same time exist in our contexts 
of significance. If we take into account the individual learn- 
ing process, as contrasted with the social system of experience, 
this becomes a threefold location, as the individual must ascer- 
tain and locate in his own experience, the results of social experi- 
ence which in turn must take account of the special contexts 
of nature. 

We may take a fact over and over again in our logical systems 
without transmuting the physical properties of the fact. Their 
meaning is colored by the significance of the special system, 
but their physical color remains the same. It is only altered 
by physical relations. It is true that logical systems are not 
closed systems. Our thinking connects with our sensory 
centers, on the one hand, and the motor centers, on the other 
hand. It thus not only receives its data from the larger world, 
but through its motor control can effect changes in that world. 
What we are here concerned with, however, is the logical type 
of system in its abstractness. And here it is true that we may 
carry on our operations of thought without affecting the exist- 
ence or qualities of the things upon which we operate. The 
great value of the logical system is that by thus analyzing our 
world and selecting its relevant features, we are able to sub- 
stitute these few features for the concrete complex of experi- 
ence. This means both increased insight and increased effi- 
ciency. Of course to carry on this logical analysis we may 
find it useful actually to decompose and synthesize the things 
with which we deal. But that is another story, and has to do 
with concrete energy relations and not merely logical relations. 



KNOWING THINGS 107 

This is true, likewise, in considering the energy effects of think- 
ing as, for example, the using up of food energy and the produc- 
tion of heat, as well as of the direct effect of our emotional 
and volitional attitudes upon various physiological functions. 
Here we are deahng not with logical systems as such, but in 
relation to, and as aspects of, the organic system of behavior 
of which they are a part. 

We must be careful not to confuse purely logical relations 
with energy relations. Bradley seems to do this when he insists 
that we cannot take facts over again in our logical experiments 
of analysis and synthesis without transmuting them. We do 
indeed transmute their significance in so experimenting with 
them. But their energy properties and relations are only 
transmuted, in so far as they are transmuted, in their energy 
systems. Colors do not change their tint or hue by our think- 
ing about them. They do so only as a result of physical and 
physiological changes. On the other hand, we cannot treat 
the world of energies with its transmutations as a merely logi- 
cal type of system, compounded of logical entities. While it 
is true that in our logical universe of discourse we can take our 
entities and relations over and over again in various contexts 
without affecting their character, we cannot postulate a priori 
that we can do so in the concrete world. In our energy sys- 
tems we must discover just what difference it makes that our 
elements enter into different combinations, and must formulate 
our laws accordingly. 

Things and Values ^ 

The unique contribution which is made by the experience 
relation is the world of values. Values have their basis in the 
relation of objects, with their qualities, to the realization of the 
will. They involve two relatively independent variables — 
conative tendencies with their organization on the one hand, 
and feelings, with their physiological conditions, on the other 
hand. The latter are bound up with the much despised organic 
sensations of the vital organs below the diaphragm. The 
former imply, on the one hand, instinctive tendencies and, on 

1 For a fuller discussion see "Value and Social Interpretation," The American 
Journal of Sociology, 1915. 



108 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

the other, tendencies derived from the organization of instinct 
into social experience. Both variables are essential; but, of 
the two, organized tendency is the more constant and impor- 
tant, and tends to grow more so with the organization of expe- 
rience. Feelings tend to fluctuate with organic conditions. 
They are especially prominent in the case of obstructed activity, 
and tend to approximate zero with the complete organization 
of activity. But the presence of feeling, or at least its pos- 
sibility, must be regarded as an essential condition of 
value, for an activity which can no longer be felt can hardly 
be spoken of as realization or as a value activity. 

There has been considerable dispute as regards the qualities 
of values. Some have contended with Socrates in the ''Pro- 
tagoras" and with Bentham that there are only two kinds of 
values, pleasant and unpleasant, though these may vary indef- 
initely in quantity. Pleasantness and unpleasantness, how- 
ever, must be regarded as the names of two fundamental 
classes of values rather than as an analysis of the qualities 
of values. If values depend, as we have maintained, upon the 
two variables of conative tendency and feeling, there must, 
owing to the variation and complexity of these variables, be 
an indefinite number of value qualities. This seems to agree 
with what we find in concrete experience, where we discriminate 
an indefinite number of classes of value, in accordance with the 
varying types of activities and emotional states. 

The question naturally arises as to the relation of value 
qualities to other types of qualities, such as sense qualities. 
Some have suggested that value qualities should be called 
tertiary quahties. This assumes the distinction between 
primary and secondary sense qualities. This ranking, however, 
is purely pragmatic, as we have shown elsewhere. The so- 
called secondary qualities are just as real as the so-called pri- 
mary qualities, though the latter may be more important for 
certain purposes. Nor can we admit the implication that 
value quahties are merely more subjective sense qualities. 
They are not sense qualities at all. They belong to a different 
system of reality. While sense qualities vary independently 
of our emotional-volitional situations, values vary precisely 
with the unique character of these situations. We may have 



KNOWING THINGS 109 

passed from enthusiastic enjoyment of ragtime to utter bore- 
dom of that sort of thing, but the sense quahties of ragtime have 
not changed in the meantime. Again, the world of values 
grows with experience. Our reflection upon values is itself a 
source of values, but our reflection upon sense qualities does 
not alter their character. 

While value qualities must not be confused with sense quali- 
ties, they are none the less real. They are indeed qualifications 
of the objective world. We cannot admit that they are mere 
arbitrary additions to our world, irrespective of its fundamental 
constitution. They are gifts in no other sense than sense 
qualities are gifts in their own unique systems. They are 
unique characteristics within certain relations, implying a 
specific type of organization. They are just as much a part of 
the real world under their own conditions as are the unique 
properties of water within their own special system. They 
may even be said to reveal the richness of the world to a greater 
degree than the sense qualities. They give us what may be 
called the inwardness of reality, — the sense of participation 
in activities as opposed to being a mere mechanical agent or 
a mere neutral spectator like the Sankyah soul. 

Values permit of their own type of organization. It is not 
true that value qualities are merely private and fleeting. They 
are capable of comparison and agreement; they are socially 
predictable. And so we have our cookery, our science of 
economics, and our art, which would be impossible if values 
were of a merely unique, private, and irreversible character. 
They may, indeed, be more permanent than sense things. 
Our biological values have a high degree of uniformity in the 
development of the race. Even our aesthetic and ethical values 
show a considerable constancy. Greek art is still beautiful 
to us, and the ethical ideals of the Hebrew prophets are still 
standard for us. On the other hand, some of the chemical 
elements, like radium, would seem to be undergoing a radical 
change as regards their qualities. Indeed, the possibility of 
social structure — our mutual confidence on which credit is 
based, and our mutual appreciation on which friendship and 
art depend — presupposes a certain constancy and agreement 
as regards values. Thel-e are, no doubt, the more transient 



110 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

values which exist but for the moment. There is, too, the 
uniqueness which must go with individual organization and 
with the pecuHar context of living, social experience of which we 
are a part. Our agreements and laws are, indeed, abstractions 
— nets in which we try to hold the concrete, real world. But 
this appUes also to other types of qualitative selection. In 
any case it is the more stable and universal features which give 
significance to the more unique and fleeting ones. 

Looked at from the point of view of the world of values, 
things become merely instrumental. They are the circum- 
stances and accidents to be controlled and made over, the raw 
material for creative transformation. We cannot attribute 
value to things on their own account as we can to selves. The 
values of things are derived from their being taken up into the 
process of conscious realization. Agnosticism is quite right 
in maintaining that we cannot know the inwardness of things, 
but this is because they have no inwardness. Things have no 
halo of value on their own account. The values of things 
exist, as Hegel would say, an sichj and not fur sich; that is, 
they exist for the spectator, and not for the things themselves. 
At least so it seems to us in our limited perspective. In the 
world of values, man and conscious wills like his are the measure 
of things. 

Those idealists, who have made value the ultimate category 
of existence and who have insisted that only the intrinsically 
valuable is real, have been forced by their logic to deny reahty 
to things as contrasted with values. Thus T. H. Green, hav- 
ing assumed that the universe is ultimately a unity of meaning, 
that the reality of things is constituted by reflective experi- 
ence, and finding that nature cannot itself be regarded as such 
an experience, can give things a locus only in our own and the 
absolute experience. Plato, likewise, having assumed that 
only worth is real, is forced to accord to the world of perceptual 
things only a phenomenal reality. The real world becomes a 
world of normative ideals of which the concrete world is only 
a poor imitation. Nature can be acknowledged as real only 
as it is reduced to mathematical models. But while we must 
insist upon the reality of values in their own unique systems, 
we must also admit that things have qualities and relations of 



KNOWING THINGS 111 

their own in other systems which we must acknowledge. It 
is indeed through the existence of such systems as the mechani- 
cal, chemical, and biological, that value realization is made 
possible, however much the existence of value systems enhances 
the retrospect and prospect. It is only fair to say, however, 
that the overemphasis of the idealist has been called forth by 
the understatement and skepticism of the materialist, and 
historically has constituted a compensation for the latter's 
depreciation of values. Nor has materialism of this sort been 
confined to a few philosophers. If so, it would be compara- 
tively harmless, as but few can understand them. The eternal 
protest of the poets and prophets is rather against the material- 
istic deadness and commonplace which tends to overlay the 
dull routine of human society, and which makes us act as though 
merely things were real, and as though selves were mere things 
to be used accordingly. As against this general social tendency, 
we need the romantic movements which emphasize that, in 
human economy at least, things must be instrumental to values. 
This may also be true in the larger cosmic economy. We know 
that within human control, values may condition the survival 
of things. This happens whenever the will selects on the basis 
of ideals. Whether a statue shall survive as a statue depends 
upon its formal fitness rather than upon the properties of its 
material, which may be Parian marble. Whether a grove or 
a hill survives may depend upon its relation to human purposes. 
If there is a conscious power that exercises selection in the larger 
universe, then survival in the whole of existence as well as in 
the world of human control, may depend upon its value fit- 
ness — its harmony with an ideal constitution. 

To us, indeed, natural beauty seems an accidental framing of 
the contexts of our environment. We limit nature arbitrarily, 
it seems, by our interest, and within those limits find an aesthetic 
value reaHzed, as in a mountain or lake or woodland scene. 
In the case of artificial beauty, on the other hand, the will is 
able to create its own conditions. It can eliminate a great 
deal of detail and thus produce greater clearness and distinct- 
ness than the natural object usually has. But both artificial 
and natural beauty must suggest life and energy in harmonious 
interplay and equilibrium in order to fulfill the demands of 



112 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

the aesthetic instinct. Both depend, in the last analysis, upon 
formal laws which are forced upon our experience and which 
must somehow be inherent in the structure of reality. We are 
somehow, in the process of cosmic evolution, made for the 
sunset as well as the sunset for us. Nature but reveals through 
human nature its immanent tendency toward order and beauty. 
In the words of the Swedish poet, Runeberg : ''Art does not 
raise nature and it does not make it more majestic than it 
really is, but it raises human nature to see its own glory and 
the glory of the world — it helps to see right through the con- 
fusion of the external." 



PART II 

CONSCIOUSNESS AND MIND 



CHAPTER VII 

The Concept of Consciousness 

Examination of Theories 

The question confronts us at the outset : what sort of reality 
can we assign to consciousness ? Is it an energy or thing — 
another kind of thing, perhaps, from the world of things it 
illumines? Anaxagoras evidently felt after some entity 
which he could set over against the world of ordinary things. 
So he invented Nous ' infinite and self-ruled, mixed with noth- 
ing, the thinnest of all things and the purest; and it has all 
knowledge about everything and the greatest strength; and 
Nous has power over all things, over the whole revolution, so 
that it began to revolve in the beginning ; and it set in order 
all things that were to be and that were ; and all Nous is alike, 
both the greater and the smaller/ Strange attempt this to get 
away from the world of quantitative processes, but lacking the 
tools to do so ; to find something which does not move and yet 
is the source of motion. This idea of something which is not 
movement and yet the source of movement has been stated re- 
cently, in modern terms, by the late Professor C. S. Minot : 
'^The universe consists of force and consciousness. As con- 
sciousness by our hypothesis can initiate the change of the form 
of energy, it may be that without consciousness the universe 
would come to absolute rest." ^ But this ambiguous status of 
consciousness, as that which is and is not a thing, which does 
not move and yet is the source of movement, is not very con- 
sistent or satisfactory. We must locate consciousness in one 
category or the other, and to that end we must make our 
concepts more clear and definite. Ostwald frankly treats con- 
sciousness as a form of energy convertible into other energies. 
But his tools have not enabled him to deal with consciousness 

1 Science, N.S., Vol. XVI, No. 392, p. 26. 
115 



116 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

as such. What he has dealt with is physiological and psycho- 
logical processes. Now I freely admit that we may look upon 
psychological processes as energetic. I can see nothing in the 
way of such a view except prejudice. 

The insistence in recent times that mental processes are not 
quantitatively comparable is due to the confusing of processes 
with the consciousness of processes. The consciousness of blue 
or pain or effort is not a quantitative affair. But the processes 
themselves are, however crudely, quantitatively comparable. 
Wherever you can apply the category of more or less, you have 
quantity. There are intensive quantities, as well as extensive. 
That we cannot in the former case superimpose a quantitative 
unit does not prove that they do not differ in quantity. This 
is merely a matter of the exactness of the quantitative com- 
parison. Fechner's mistake was not in regarding psychological 
processes as quantitative, but in trying to equate processes 
where quantitative units are possible with those where no such 
units are possible. It is no argument against the quantitative 
character of mental processes that they also differ qualitatively 
and that you cannot equate quantity and quality. Neither 
can you do so in chemistry. There, too, you have to recognize 
certain original elements as well as quantitative relations. 

Now all psychological processes, be they sensational, affec- 
tional, intellectual or volitional, differ in intensity, as well as 
in kind. Bergson's attempt to reduce psychic intensity to a 
qualitative manifold is due to his reading the complexity of 
the physiological conditions into the psychological result. 
We must take the psychic process for what it appears to in- 
trospection, irrespective of the antecedents. The variation in 
intensity, moreover, bears definite and describable relations 
to physical and physiological conditions. Hence I see no reason 
why we should not use energy as a term for such differences. 
Pressures may be heavier or lighter without varying in kind. 
Colors may be brighter or fainter, pains may be intenser or 
weaker, memories may last longer or shorter, ideas may be more 
or less vivid, the feeling of effort may vary in strength. Where- 
ever you can vary as regards more or less, without variation 
in quality, there you have quantity. What else would you 
call it? Whether there is also in such cases variation in the 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 117 

quality of the psychological processes, introspection must de- 
cide. There is no other judge. This difference in intensity 
must not be confused with our spreading out our qualitative 
series, such as our color series, in space in order to schematize 
the qualitative relations. Though our figure here is spatial, 
that does not make the relations quantitative. Distance here 
is merely figurative for the direction of difference of quality. 

What I have said in regard to perceptual contents, I might 
have said in regard to will. Will or desire is capable of being 
more or less, even if we cannot measure it with exactness. 
All psychological processes are conative processes. They in- 
volve motor tendency and this varies in strength. The mis- 
take has not been in regarding conative tendencies or motives 
as differing in strength, but in regarding them as forces in- 
dependent of the ego and acting upon the ego. Whether will, 
or conative tendency, which lies at the bottom of all psychic 
processes, is an energy different from electrical and nervous 
energy ; how it interacts with other forms ; whether it is radio- 
active or has some still subtler mode of making a difference; 
whether it acts at a distance, — this would have to be dealt 
with in a discussion on energy and not on consciousness. At 
present I am inclined to think that mind-stuff is a distinctive 
type of energy, however ignorant we may be of its relation to 
other energies. Moreover, it seems evident that conative 
tendency is not always, and therefore need not be, conscious 
tendency, and that mind stuff and consciousness do not neces- 
sarily coincide. Whether, again, all energy can be reduced to 
one kind and whether will is that fundamental kind, is a ques- 
tion to be decided by scientific convenience and quite distinct 
from the problem of consciousness. 

While we must acknowledge, then, that conscious processes 
are more or less, that they have describable relations or con- 
tinuities with other processes, such as physiological and chemi- 
cal, and that therefore we may extend the term energy to cover 
these, we cannot on that account admit that consciousness as 
such is capable of more or less, any more than of qualitative 
difference. Is the consciousness of extended or heavy or colored 
things an extended or heavy or colored consciousness? Is the 
consciousness of a greater intensity a more intense consciousness 



118 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

than the consciousness of a less intensity? I see no need for 
assuming a difference in consciousness. The variations in kind 
and in intensity can all be accounted for as due to variations 
in the complexity and intensity of the processes, conditioned 
by the cortex in the last analysis. There is no need in du- 
plicating these differences on the side of consciousness. It is 
easier to suppose consciousness a constant and regard the 
variations as due to physiological and conative processes than 
to duplicate the processes by making consciousness an energy. 
But if the fact of consciousness does not vary, either as regards 
quantity or quality, with the variation of energetic processes, 
then we may be sure that it is not itself an energy or a function 
of energy, but must be treated as an independent dimension of 
reality. All our scientific evidence, introspective, biological, 
and pathological fits in with this view. It is with the com- 
plexity of biological structure that consciousness has come into 
evidence ; and the differentiation of conscious processes in the 
way of sensations, memory, reasoning, has followed the growth 
in complexity of biological structure. And, again, with fatigue, 
disease and degeneracy of such structures, the complex psy- 
chical processes fail to operate. When we are tired, we fail 
to recall a familiar name, though we are conscious enough at 
the time. Disease may make us lose our visual and auditory 
images, may make us fail to think coherently, and to regulate 
our activities in a purposive and orderly way, though we are 
as conscious as ever. The energy and organization of conscious 
processes, therefore, cannot be found on the side of consciousness. 

Moreover, however much continuity there may be on the 
side of the energetic conditions of consciousness, consciousness 
as an effective factor no doubt appears at a leap — as sensations 
of light when the structural conditions of the eye are complete, 
or of tone with the presence of the basilar membrane, or of 
electricity when the proper motion or chemical conditions are 
furnished, with the difference that, while in the above cases the 
relations are energetic, the energies varying in some quantita- 
tive proportion, in the case of consciousness the category of 
energy is not appHcable. 

Theories which try to define consciousness in terms of energy 
must somehow surreptitiously add consciousness at some stage 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 119 

of the process. They cannot derive it from energy. It is not 
clear that the energetic equivalences are in any wise affected 
by consciousness being added. The adding of the fact of 
consciousness is sometimes concealed by using the term poten- 
tial which covers so many sins. Certain energetic situations 
are potentially conscious only on condition that you add con- 
sciousness. Certain optical processes of light waves, retinal 
and cerebral changes are sensations of light only when you 
add consciousness to the situation. In the same way, certain 
dynamic tensions in connection with the brain are not as such 
consciousness. This must be added in order for processes to be 
aware of themselves as association and meaning. 

It has become the fashion now to state consciounsess in terms 
of empirical situations of experience rather than in terms of a 
thing or energy outside experience. Here, again, there has 
been difference of emphasis. What part of the experience 
situation is it that is identical with consciousness? 

The older writers on psychology were wont to identify 
consciousness with the sum total of experience. They made a 
catalogue of its various contents — sensations, memories, con- 
cepts, feelings, and volitions, and called the whole conscious- 
ness. What mental processes are when they are not conscious 
they did not try to explain, unless indeed they fell back upon a 
materialistic physiology, or more recently upon the vague no- 
tion of the subconscious which is left undefined. It has seemed, 
however, to some recent psychologists that consciousness must 
be defined in terms of some part of the psychological situation, 
rather than in terms of the situation as a whole. 

One group of writers would identify consciousness with the 
motor aspect of the psychological situation. It has been pointed 
out that the motor sensations occupy a peculiarly prominent 
place in attention. Some would even go so far as to reduce 
mental activity altogether to kinsesthetic sensations and images. 
At any rate such were the only facts which Wm. James could in- 
trospectively verify. It has been shown by the Dewey school ^ 
that strain, doubt, and readjustment are conditions of conscious- 

^ See "James Memorial Volume," Longman's, pp. 73 f ; also E. B. McGilvary, 
Discussion, the Jour. Phil. Psych, and Sci. Meth., Vol. IX, pp. 301, 302, and 
Dewey's Reply, Ibid., 544-548. ' 



120 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

ness and that, when those are wanting, consciousness drops out. 
It has, therefore, seemed that consciousness must be identified 
with certain organic checks and releases in the reahzation of 
the vital impulse. Stated in more general terms, the unique 
function of consciousness is to control behavior.^ 

The elements in the psychological situation, emphasized by 
the motor theory, are no doubt significant for the understand- 
ing of consciousness. But I do not believe they afford a final 
explanation. In the first place, the motor sensations and motor 
attitudes are merely symptomatic of the system of conative 
tendency which presses for realization. At most they are only 
part of the content of the situation. The more organized the 
conative tendency is, the less noticeable are the motor sen- 
sations, and the more important is the part which the intel- 
lectual elements play in the organization or steering of the 
stream of impulse. While again it is true that "consciousness 
plays about the zone of activity" (to use Bergson's picturesque 
phrase), or rather serves to reveal it and show its whither, we 
must not confuse the conditions of consciousness with the fact 
itself. Because consciousness appears under certain condi- 
tions of intensity and strain, it does not follow that conscious- 
ness itself can be reduced to terms of such intensity. It seems, 
on the contrary, to be a new fact, discontinuous with the 
antecedent conditions. 

Another group of writers would identify consciousness with 
the cognitive side — the relational aspect. This theory is 
an implication of the idealistic movement. Since the relations 
are taken as existing within the content rather than as legislated 
from without, the theory harks back to Hegel and T. H. Green 
rather than to Kant. In any case it is the relational aspect 

1 It is impossible here to do justice to the functional view of consciousness. 
It has found classic expression in " Studies in Logical Theory " by Dewey and 
other members of the Chicago School. See also the lucid statement in " Prag- 
matism and its Critics," by A. W. Moore; "Definition of the Psychical," by 
G. H. Mead, University of Chicago, Decennial Publications, First Series, 
Vol. Ill, Pt. II, pp. 79-112; Angell's "Psychology." B. H. Bode identifies 
consciousness with the "fringe" considered as a total character, "which is in 
the nature of a reference or relationship that faces the future," but the function is 
control. Phil. Rev., Vol. 23, pp. 389-409. While the functional theory has made 
an important contribution in showing the part played by conscious processes in 
prevision and adjustment, it does not define consciousness as such. 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 121 

which is regarded as giving the contents meaning. The 
relations which are emphasized by a contemporary author are 
the logical relations. Consciousness is identified with the con- 
cept of cognitive meaning. To quote Professor F. J. E. Wood- 
bridge : ''We are wont to think of a world without conscious- 
ness in it as a world devoid of meaning. Add consciousness to 
that world and then meaning is added, but nothing else. . . . 
Indeed, it seems to me, on analysis of the situation, that just 
this character of 'awareness^ turns out to be the manifold and 
irresistible meaning connections which the things in the con- 
scious situation have." ^ And again: ''The peculiar way in 
which consciousness connects the objects in it is, thus, the way 
of knowledge, actual or possible." ^ 

In the first place, the attempt to define consciousness in terms 
of cognitive meaning or logical relations seems too narrow a 
definition. There are other types of meaning beside the re- 
lational type. There is the cumulative perceptual disposition 
as in listening to a melody or in the immediate sense of duration 
as conditioned by attention strain. There are also the aesthetic 
and mystical types of meaning which, while they possess a 
certain noetic value, cannot be regarded as relational in the 
logical sense. Moreover, there may be types of experience of 
a more primitive character to which we cannot ascribe the 
category of meaning. Hypothetically at least, we must assume 
a first interest, a pure perception, which is innocent of any 
associative context. • In everyday life we are conscious of a 
vast number of sensations which we do not attend to and which, 
therefore, have no meaning. Shall we read out these other 
types of meaning or these mere "awarenesses" from the cate- 
gory of consciousness, when we are conscious of them? That 
seems at least arbitrary. 

Is, however, the main thesis true that by adding conscious- 
ness we add meaning? And conversely, that by taking away 

1 "Studies in Philosophy and Psychology," 1906, pp. 160 and 161. Cp. 
R. B. Perry, "Conceptions and Misconceptions of Consciousness," Psychol. 
Reo., Vol. 77, esp. p. 296. 

2 Jour. Phil. Psychol, and Sci. Meth., Vol. II, p. 122. Professor E. B. Mc- 
Gilvary regards consciousness as "a unique togetherness" not further analyz- 
able. See "Experience as Pure and Consciousness as Meaning," the Jour. 
Phil. Psychol, and Sci. Meth., Vol, VIII, pp. 511 ff. 



122 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

consciousness we take away meaning? Do we add the mean- 
ing to Homer's Iliad or to Euclid's Geometry or to our own 
meditations of yesterday by becoming conscious of them? 
Do they not as a matter of fact have their own relational con- 
text, quite irrespective of our awareness, — a meaning which is 
socially objective and which we must respect? It would seem, 
then, that the world of cognitive and other types of meaning 
into which the objects of the world have been woven are as 
independent of consciousness as are their spatial and temporal 
contexts. Consciousness no more creates the former type of 
context than it does the latter. 

It may be argued, perhaps, that, while the objective or social 
meaning is thus independent of our awareness the subjec- 
tive way of taking or apperceiving these meanings is identical 
with consciousness. This is nearer the truth at any rate. But 
even in taking account of my own present meaning and its 
implications, I must recognize that it is not created by my 
awareness, though this awareness is a condition of the mean- 
ing's intuiting itself. In the deliberative process, for example, 
the will discovers its trend, the implications in its push of tend- 
ency, in its system of relations. But this direction and com- 
plexity of will do not originate when, in the stress of readjust- 
ment to a new situation, we become conscious of their implied 
meaning. Neither the conative system nor the perplexing 
situation are created by consciousness. The awareness is added 
as a new fact — a gift from the larger universe to the energetic 
situation. It does not create the personal, any more than the 
social meaning. In either case it is a condition for intuiting 
or lighting up such meaning with its inherent relationships. 

If what is intended (and the advocates of the relational view 
of consciousness shift easily and without warning from epis- 
temological to physiological terminology) is not that conscious- 
ness is a relation between terms figuring somehow within the 
field of experience, but that it is a type of interaction between 
energetic centers, a type of energetic continuity between energy 
as nervous structure and energy as stimulus,^ then we shall 

^ W. P. Montague identifies "the field of consciousness with the field of poten- 
tial energy set up in the nerve centers," the self being conceived "as a system of 
interconnected stresses." The Jour. Phil. Psychol, and Set. Meth., Vol. V, p. 210. 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 123 

have to ask how it figures or what difference it makes to this 
interaction. If this interaction is an interaction of non-con- 
scious energies, how can it account for the presence of con- 
sciousness? The fact that it appears under certain energetic 
conditions of structure and stimulus does not prove that it is 
nothing else than the interaction of structure and stimulus, if 
you choose to use relation in this extraconscious sense. I can- 
not distinguish this miraculous production of consciousness, 
out of non-conscious energies, from the materialistic position, 
which I shall discuss later. 

What would seem to be indicated, then, is that consciousness 
is a fact over and beyond relations, whether logical relations 
or energetic relations — a fact which is somehow bound up with 
the subjective significance of relations; which makes energy 
aware of itself as meaningful energy. Just as space is not a 
relation or a system of relations, but makes possible the whole 
system of distance interactions, schematized by our construc- 
tive purpose into a system of relations ; and as time is not a 
relation, but makes possible the relations of before and after, of 
past, present, and future, so consciousness, though not a rela- 
tion, makes possible all significance of relations including time 
and space relations, as well as logical relations. Just as in the 
case of space, it is not a question of a relation to space, but a 
question of the relation of energies to each other as conditioned 
by space, so in the case of consciousness it is not a question of 
the relation of facts or energies to consciousness, but the re- 
lation of these facts or energies to each other within the field 
of consciousness. Consciousness is added to a certain type of 
energetic relation, where conative constitution is a factor of the 
energetic system. Just as certain substances such as mother 
of pearl have no color of their own, but are colored by the 
variegated light which plays upon them, so consciousness can 
claim no quality or relation as its own. It merely brings to 
light the variety of the context. If we take consciousness as 
such a neutral light, we are free to account for process and its 
qualities in terms of the energetic situations. Tone, color, and 
pain, we then find, are as much processes as weight or chemical 
change. What consciousness adds is the awareness, which is 
something over and above the energetic relations. 



124 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

If consciousness is not a relation, nor a thing, nor a form of 
energy, shall we accept the nominalist view that consciousness 
is merely a name for the sum total of conscious processes, and 
that any attempt to deal with consciousness as such is a mere 
hypostasis — a mistaking of a logical abstraction for an inde- 
pendent reality? Is it like abstracting somniferousness from 
somniferous substances and then treating it as an independent 
fact? Is it nothing over and beyond certain processes? 

There is surely enough truth in the nominalist view to make 
it plausible. We have seen by this time that consciousness 
cannot be a thing; that, therefore, if you abstract from the 
processes in connection with which consciousness appears, there 
is no thing left. But is there not something suspicious about 
this introspective method and its easy solution? Does it not 
include first of all the fact which it was to separate, and then 
say that it is not outside? It is true that outside of conscious 
processes introspection furnishes no evidence of consciousness. 
But why should it? Neither does chemistry furnish any evi- 
dence of water or radium outside of the things known to contain 
water or radium. If you wanted arguments for the presence 
of consciousness outside of empirical conscious processes, you 
surely would not get them from introspection. 

But the problem has not been stated fairly by the introspec- 
tionist. The ego is not statable merely as a stream of conscious 
processes. The ego is an affair of dispositions or tendencies, 
sometimes conscious, sometimes not. Consciousness surely 
does not make the stream of life continuous. The tendencies 
in the way of association and memory are present, sleeping or 
waking, else they would be of no use. Meaning is a matter 
of the working of the associative mechanism, and this, is recog- 
nized as a physiological fact. What makes a fact suggestive 
at any one time, or what makes culture, is only to a small ex- 
tent conscious. Even when adaptations are conscious for a 
while they may become habits. What becomes of conscious- 
ness when it is ''not needed"? The question is not: can you 
observe consciousness outside of conscious processes? Can 
you, like the old schoolmaster, see some boys that are not here? 
That is to talk nonsense. The question is : what significance 
does this fact of consciousness have in the stream of the ego- 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 125 

tendencies, where it is sometimes present, sometimes seemingly 
absent or absent so far as effective relation to the processes 
goes ; which at most only partly, and in small part, illumines 
our fund of tendencies even when we are most awake? In 
short, what makes the difference between sleeping and waking? 
What happens when we become conscious? During sleep we 
are still there to other observers. We are energetic activities 
which can become conscious in an instant, by waking up. In 
the meantime there is no evidence to others of consciousness. 
A little change in blood distribution and heat, perhaps, or it 
may be only an external stimulus of some intensity, furnishes 
the condition for the reappearance of consciousness, and the 
wheels of mind go round again in a significant way. The world 
has value once more. With the increased working of the extra- 
conscious machinery of association, we pass thus from sleeping 
to dim drowsiness and to organized waking meaning. The 
conscious moments seem discontinuous. In the stream of 
tendencies which we call the ego, there are beside the con- 
scious moments, the changes which the purposive ego and the 
spectators must interpolate in order to understand the conscious 
processes. If it were not for this seeming coming and going 
of consciousness as contrasted with the continuity of the en- 
ergetic processes, on which our feeling of continuity itself de- 
pends, we would not abstract consciousness — but what does 
it all mean ? 

The materialist is ready with a simple and at first sight plau- 
sible answer. He at least tries to meet the problem of seeming 
discontinuity in nature. His answer is that consciousness is 
a discontinuous function or incidental effect of the mechanical 
processes. He includes not only consciousness as such in this 
*' epiphenomenon," but all conscious processes. These, more- 
over, are not energy, but a picturesque chiaroscuro or halo of 
the going-on of the energetic processes, which are mechanically 
conceived. Or, stating it more crassly, but not less metaphori- 
cally, ''the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile." 
Or, if you want more metaphors, consciousness is to the physio- 
logical mechanism what the headlight is to the steam engine. 

But while metaphors have always appealed to human beings, 
they are not very satisfactory as explanation. The conception 



126 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

of energy for one thing has changed, and the materialist, famil- 
iar with the physical speculations of to-day, would be more 
apt to use electrical than mechanical metaphors. That, how- 
ever, would not essentially alter the problem. We have also 
seen that conative processes, whether conscious or not, must 
be thought of as energy. They vary as regards quantity ; they 
bear definite relations to other forms of energy. We shall 
have to transfer these, therefore, to the energetic side of the 
account. Nor is it any argument against these processes that 
they are different from other forms of energy, that some of them 
at least are not extended, that they cannot be weighed, and 
that, therefore, the category of mechanical motion is not ap- 
plicable. Electrical energy and neural energy do not have 
extensive mass or weight ; they do not come under mechanical 
motion ; yet we have to recognize them as forms of energy, and 
as making definite differences to other forms. We need have 
no difficulty, therefore, in recognizing mind stuff as energy. 
And why should certain processes cease to be energy because 
illumined by consciousness, any more than space, though not 
active, prevents bodies from being active, though activity has 
a very different value, and scope, too, no doubt, because con- 
scious ? 

The common objection, raised against materialism, that it 
violates the law of conservation of energy, would not be serious 
if the theory met the facts, as scientific laws are mere general- 
izations from facts. It would at most only show the limita- 
tions of the so called law. Neither is it an answer to material- 
ism to charge it with moral baseness, as our ideals are what 
they are on any theory. And sometimes sad things are true. 
Our only concern now is, does it explain the presence of con- 
sciousness? We would have to agree with materialism that 
consciousness as such is not an energy, and hence cannot do 
what energies do, even though we must recognize conscious 
processes as energy. Consciousness is not capable of quantita- 
tive variation. It cannot be the cause of motion and change. 
But can we regard it as an effect of energy? We are familiar 
now with all sorts of transformations of energy. We know 
that mechanical motion can bring about electricity or heat, so 
different from itself. But can we also conceive of energetic 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 127 

process producing a fact which is not energy at all — not trans- 
formable into energy, to be sure, because it is a different sort 
of fact, but can it, not being energy, be caused by energy? 
There is an unbridgable saltus here in the thinking of material- 
ism; and none have been more candid in admitting this than 
some of the materialists themselves. 

I do not see, however, that the saltus is any greater in making 
a non-energetic consciousness the effect of energetic changes 
than in recognizing, as James and Minot do, that consciousness 
is not a thing or energy, and yet make it produce energetic 
changes. The chasm is about as wide one way as the other. 
That one form of energy can bring about changes in another 
form of energy is within experience and probability, but not 
that energy should be converted into non-energy, or vice versa. 

If materialism holds with Hobbes that consciousness is a 
property of matter and not a miracle merely, it must also admit 
that it is totally different in kind from any other properties. 
It thus practically admits that consciousness is an independent 
variable or attribute of reality. 

Any theory, whatever it calls itself, which strives to derive 
consciousness, will have the difficulty of materialism — in losing 
the quantitative and energetic in what is not energetic. This 
involves an unintelligible saltus; and we shall always, therefore, 
look for a smoother transition between consciousness, on the 
one hand, and the world of processes, with their quantitative 
variations, on the other. This is furnished in the theory of 
consciousness as a constant in the universe, though depending 
upon certain conditions for its manifestation, as electricity is 
now regarded as an original fact (by some the most original), 
though dependent upon certain conditions. This brings it 
into the realm of the familiar. 

Materialism has at least the advantage of simplicity, but 
parallelism is as cumbrous as it is unintelligible. To remedy 
the fancied injury to the law of the conservation of energy, it 
duplicates physiological and psychological processes and leaves 
them suspended in mid-air, without either series making any 
difference to the other. To speak of psychological contents, 
where there is no evidence, is surely doubtful psychology, and, 
so far as I can see, has no epistemological justification. To 



128 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

wind up with idealistic monism is as roundabout as it is a 
questionable way of arriving at such a doctrine. To make 
psychological processes parallel to mechanical rearrangements 
can only convey sense to a man who does not think about it. 
Even if we mean by parallel merely a one to one correspondence, 
we have no right to assume a priori that such obtains. And 
it would be the wildest sort of imagination to hope to estabhsh 
it by empirical proof. And, lastly, to give the world of physical 
objects any status at all, since it can make no difference to the 
world of psychic processes, seems impossible. If this furnishes 
credulous people a short cut to idealism, let them enjoy it. 

We have already seen that psychological processes must be 
regarded as energy, bearing statable relations to other forms 
of energy. The physiological body is a net for catching several 
types of energy, mechanical, chemical, electrical, nervous, and 
conative. There is no reason for drawing any line of holy and 
unholy between these, at least for scientific purposes, and to- 
gether they furnish the individual organism with its race and 
individual characteristics, its continuities, and its specific activ- 
ities. To this stream of processes consciousness is somehow 
added. But it is certainly not parallel to it. 

There remains the interaction theory, with its insistence upon 
the causal efficacy of consciousness. With the best of motives, 
this theory is as confused epistemologically as the preceding. 
There can be no sense in speaking of the consciousness of pain 
or blue as interacting with the physiological processes of pain 
or blue. The pain processes and the blue processes, no doubt, 
vary with other energies, and in turn act upon them, but this 
is not the case with the awareness of them. By stating con- 
sciousness as an independent variable, an ultimate, non-ener- 
getic fact, we shall have the simplicity of materialism without 
the contradiction of trying to convert energy into non-energy. 
We shall fulfill the intent of the materialist by taking con- 
sciousness out of the energetic category, while we acknowledge 
the energetic claims of the conative processes. We shall save 
the duplication of parallelism and its absurd separation of 
processes into two independent causal series, but we shall ac- 
complish the intent of parallelism by showing the independent 
and non-derivable character of consciousness as such. We shall 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 129 

finally accomplish the intent of the interaction theory by show- 
ing the energetic character of the conative processes, their 
efficacious relation to the other energies of nature, while we 
get rid of the absurdity of having a non-energetic consciousness 
interact with an energetic world. 

It is time we were getting over the false prejudice that the 
body is something mean and base and that activity is being 
degraded by being called physiological. The Greeks did not 
look upon the body as anything degraded. On the contrary, 
it was to them the embodiment of beauty and meaning. It 
furnished the inspiration for Greek sculpture. It is fraught 
with the potentialities of life. Plato alone, in some of his 
pessimistic moods, makes the body a prison house. Aristotle 
is here the truer Greek. For the evolutionist, the body is the 
bearer of the tendencies, the biological heritage, of the race; 
and for the psychologist it must furnish continuity and meaning 
to life through habit and memory. Mean is what mean does, 
and good is what good does, and if the body is bound up with 
all our badness, it also is bound up with all our goodness and 
appreciation of beauty ; it makes us one with the world of en- 
ergies, at the same time that with its tendencies it differentiates 
those energies for us. All it needs is consciousness to convert 
this structure, when it has reached a certain complexity, into 
actual value. And it does not, like Prakriti, vanish at the 
glance of Purusha. But it furnishes the activity still, though 
meaningful activity. And so we fail to give it credit. The 
body is the organ and the music, too, as consciousness is added 
to the complex bodily energies. The ceaseless, untiring player 
is nature, which in us becomes purpose and ideals. It is a mis- 
take to identify the body merely with the physical and chemical 
forms of energy. It includes nervous and will energy as well. 
There is ample chance for a hierarchy of energies within the 
body — the bearer not only of the past and present, but preg- 
nant also with the future. 

Consciousness and Mind Stuff 

This theory of consciousness removes the greatest obstacle 
to the proper metaphysical understanding of mental processes, 
viz. the dogma that their existence depends upon our con- 



130 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

sciousness of them. There are two conceptions of the exist- 
ence of mental processes when we are not conscious of them 
which may be regarded as typical. One is Augustine's view 
that ideas exist in a mysterious storehouse of the mind, thence 
to be dragged forth under certain circumstances. The other 
view is that mental facts exist only when we are aware of them. 
This has been expressed recently by William James: "The 
percipi in these originals of experience is the esse; the curtain 
is the picture." ^ It is one of the ironies of history that nothing 
has played into the hands of the materialist as this doctrine of 
subjective idealism, that esse est percipi, when applied to our 
mental states. If we assume that our mental processes cannot 
exist unless we are aware of them, then we must assume Uke- 
wise that when we are not thus conscious, mental facts are 
converted into material processes; and thus we have an in- 
finite number of miracles — magic transformations from the 
material into the mental and vice versa, unless indeed we assume 
with materialism that the halo of mental facts is extinguished 
altogether without any energetic equivalent — to be created 
afresh under certain conditions, as Heraclitus' sun is extinguished 
and born from the sea. How such a somersault theory should 
have been tolerated as scientific it is difficult to see. It cer- 
tainly indicates a tremendous appetite for the miraculous. 

Since subjective idealism assumes that mental processes 
exist only in a field of consciousness, it follows that mental 
processes must be witnessed in order not to pass into nothingness. 
Moreover, since subjective idealism Ukewise assumes that physi- 
cal qualities exist only as mental states, nature too must be 
witnessed in order to exist. It is true that such witnessing need 
not be by you or me or any particular finite self, but by a more 
inclusive witness. Even so it would seem to follow that my 
individual reality and yours disappears when there is no in- 
dividual witnessing, though held perhaps, in the meantime, as 
a configuration of content in the consciousness of some other 
witness. What constitutes the real significance of subjective 
idealism is that processes and relations in order to exist must 
be witnessed. Historically it has never meant solipsism, as 
there has always been the assumption, tacit or explicit, of 

1 "A Pluralistic Universe," p. 378. 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 131 

other witnesses beside the individual moment. It was taken 
for granted even by Berkeley that the universe did not vanish, 
when he as an individual happened to nod. In fact its char- 
acter need not be altered so long as there is any witness. 

The attempt to define the witnessing has given rise to a diver- 
sity of opinion. Some have argued that since reality does not 
seem to be dependent upon your or my witnessing, there must 
be an absolute witness, which includes all finite contents of 
experience in one comprehensive and eternal field of conscious- 
ness. Our fleeting moments are but fragmentary flashes of 
this complete self-consciousness. And whatever reality we 
have, we therefore eternally hold within, and by virtue of, the 
absolute. Others, again, have insisted that plural finite wit- 
nesses, sharing the same contents, are sufficient. The reservoir 
may be a larger cosmic field such as Fechner's earth-soul, or 
a finite supernatural mind which envelops us. Such plural 
w^itnesses it is felt are sufficient to guarantee the reality and 
meaning of our evanescent contexts of experience. 

In either form, the theory of subjective idealism is a dogma 
unsupported by evidence. It rests on the fallacious use of 
the method of agreement which merely emphasizes that mental 
states exist when we do take account of them. This no one 
would dispute. That they also make a difference when we do 
not take account of them, — a difference to the significance 
and control of the content when later attended to or to the 
sequence of events in consciousness, — is now a commonplace 
of psychology. It is a gratuitous assumption to suppose that 
mental processes are created and vanish with the appearance 
and vanishing of the consciousness of them. Memories are 
certainly not created when we become aware of them. Asso- 
ciation has its own conative context which is not a context of 
atoms and molecules. Tendencies, which we cannot recall, 
make a difference to the meaning and value of facts which we 
do recall. The shifting of the attention, which makes a mar- 
ginal fact focal, does not make the fact. In the perception of 
things, and in the filmy texture of the imagination, we have the 
reinstatement of the original sensory elements, which must, 
therefore, have existed. in the meantime. In short, we have 
come to accept the fact now that mind is a much broader term 



132 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

than consciousness; and that, while consciousness comes and 
goes, our conative attitudes, our cognitive and aesthetic contexts 
remain fairly permanent. It is easier, at least, to think that 
the limits of mind are not the limits of attention or awareness ; 
that will attitudes and ideas do not cease when we attend to 
them — to be magically recreated upon occasion ; that in the 
meantime they make a real difference to the total attention 
situation ; that they are simply brought into the narrow field 
of attention by the machinery of association, and the deter- 
minate interest at the time ; that like other energies they obey 
definite laws of spreading and recurrence ; but that they be- 
come conscious facts only under certain conditions of intensity 
and organization. Their value for the cognitive moment 
arises when they become conscious, but not their own existence 
or meaning. Augustine, with his storehouse of ideas, is nearer 
the truth than subjective idealism with its perpetual miracles, 
for he at least does not establish leaps which nature does not 
know. 

What I have tried to make clear is that consciousness and 
mind are conceptually separable facts, that consciousness is a 
fact superadded upon the contents of mind and their relations, 
under certain energy conditions of complexity and intensity; 
and that this consciousness when so added, does not make the 
will attitudes or perceptual contents nor does it add the re- 
lations of meaning to the contents. We no more make our own 
mind than the mind of Homer in becoming conscious of it. 

This question is quite distinct from the question as to the 
relation between mental processes and physical processes. Hav- 
ing abstracted from consciousness, we can conceive our mental 
processes as energies linked with other types of energy in a 
definite way. If our conative attitudes seem to make a dif- 
ference to physiological states and in turn the latter to the 
former, what is there, aside from our own bigotry, to prevent 
the applying of our categories of causality and energy, however 
difficult may be the exact measurement of the complex differ- 
ences? All that causality means, in our ignorance, is that one 
set of processes make predictable differences to another set. 
And if electricity can make definite differences to extended and 
ponderable processes without being extended and ponderable, 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 133 

why should not mind produce differences in what we call physical 
energies, though the differences thus produced may not be 
identical in kind with their antecedents? Such differences at 
any rate the facts seem to indicate in the invariable sequences 
which we observe between mental and physical processes. 
This theory judges the existence of mental energies, as it does 
radioactive, from the behavior of the processes with which we 
deal. It holds that the conative system of tendency, bound up 
somehow for the time being with the cerebral context as its 
instrument or organ, is the immediate condition of consciousness. 
It is this which must be brought into play either in solving its 
own ideal problems or as the result of the shock brought by other 
energies, intra- or extra-organic. In any case, as the fact of con- 
sciousness is present throughout the whole field of introspective 
experience, we do well to take it for granted in dealing with the 
psychology of the self, with its continuities and discontinuities. 
The nature of consciousness is a metaphysical rather than a psy- 
chological problem. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Concept of Consciousness (Continued) 

If consciousness makes no causal difference to our energetic 
processes, if the complexity of the associative organization, as 
well as the nature of its constituent processes, the sensations 
and ideas, depend upon development and structure, what 
practical difference can consciousness make to our world? 
In the first place, we have seen that this is really a new prob- 
lem. What has been dealt with in the past, from Protagoras, 
Augustine, and Descartes down, has been rather the contrast 
between one set of processes, the conative processes, especially 
as involved in knowledge, and the processes which seem more 
external to the conscious ego. But if you take away from 
the side of consciousness all that is energetic, is it not an abstrac- 
tion? Yes, it is an abstraction in the sense that space is an 
abstraction, but hke space it must be treated as a fact of its 
own kind. We have become acquainted with other reahties, 
which, while they are not energy and therefore can make no 
causal difference to energetic centers, yet do make a definable 
difference. We must rid ourselves of the prejudice that ener- 
getic or causal difference is the only difference which facts 
within reality can make to each other. There are differences 
which do not involve quantitative equivalence, but which are 
equally real. Space bears no causal relation to the energies 
in space, and yet it makes a decided difference to these energies 
that they must interact in space. Their actions do vary in a 
certain statable way with the distance. Time I have identified 
elsewhere with the chance element of the universe. Time 
makes the difference of fluency or change at all. To what degree 
and of what kind the fluency shall be, depends upon the struc- 
tural character of reality. Hence, in trying to describe the 
constancies or anticipations, which are based upon structure, 

134 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 135 

even in reducing the flow of process in general to a conven- 
tional statement in terms of some one process, we may 
come to overlook the presupposition which makes process 
at all possible. The space character and the time character 
each makes only one effective difference and throws upon the 
energetic structure the responsibility for the diversity of facts 
and changes. 

The Pragmatic Difference of Consciousness 

So with consciousness : it makes only one difference to reality. 
Under certain energetic conditions, it makes the difference of 
awareness. You might say that it is physiological and cona- 
tive processes which make consciousness apparent, rather than 
the opposite. For nature must first perfect her arrangements 
before consciousness can make any apparent difference. And 
this apparent difference is the difference of awareness. What 
the awareness means, what character and value it has, depends 
upon the energetic relations, always including the conative 
system of tendencies as part of the situation. The processes 
color consciousness, not consciousness the processes. Con- 
sciousness itself is colorless. A certain kind of energetic dif- 
ferentiation and a certain degree of energetic intensity become 
sensations of color or tone, etc., when we are aware of them; 
certain constructive or destructive changes become pleasure or 
pain. A certain kind of associative or cumulative structure 
becomes imaginative perspective, etc. 

The usefulness of such a consciousness does not account 
for its existence, but we can see how consciousness, being 
real, can figure as a survival condition and how the type of 
structure, which makes awareness possible, should be advanta- 
geous. A more efficient type of adjustment is made possible by 
working in the light rather than in the dark. The structures 
favor consciousness and in turn consciousness favors the struc- 
tures. Adaptation as such is not a matter of consciousness, 
as complicated adaptation does go on, both in human and infra- 
human Hfe, without consciousness. But, with consciousness, 
automatic adaptation becomes desire and purpose. Imagina- 
tion and thought are added to reflex and instinctive reactions, 
with greater complexity of structure. It ''is the light which 



136 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

lighteth every man that cometh into the world," but whether 
it is color or tone, emotion or thinking, pleasure or pain, depends 
not upon it, but upon the energetic conditions. As space is 
the precondition of externality and time of change, so conscious- 
ness is the precondition of awareness. 

What metaphysical difference does this awareness make to 
our world? In what way is reality practically enriched or 
altered because of consciousness? We can conceive the ener- 
getic situations as the same though consciousness is subtracted. 
We have also seen that the contexts of meaning, past and pres- 
ent, logical and aesthetic, can exist without consciousness. 
They must be acknowledged by the conscious moment. They 
are not created by our awareness. What is added then to the 
conative situation by consciousness? And what disappears 
with the subtracting of consciousness? It seems clear that 
without consciousness, we could not have value in the sense of 
subjective significance. There could not be the sense of satis- 
faction in the working out of the conative tendency. In a 
non-conscious world we can conceive of a progress from a lesser 
to a greater perfection in Spinoza's sense of greater organiza- 
tion, more complete independence from external accidents, 
greater coherence of parts, until a self-sufficient, self-dependent 
whole is reached. But Spinoza is quite right that in such an 
impersonal constitution there could be no value — no sense 
of goodness and beauty. In an intellectual type of impersonal 
world, we would have a logic machine grinding out certain re- 
sults. In a material type of world there could still be selective 
action, a differential taking account of stimuli, as the magnet 
takes account of the loadstone, as the chemical elements take 
account of each other in the compound, and respond by new 
creative syntheses. But the intuition of movement, the rela- 
tions of cognition and appreciation, would be lacking, for these 
imply, beside the energy situations, the attribute of conscious- 
ness. The category of work, energetic interlocking, could be 
applied but not the category of realization. Conative tendency 
could be there, and this could go off in the presence of certain 
stimuh, as is the case with the physiological reflexes. Add 
consciousness and instinct becomes impulse, conative tendency 
becomes interest, with its tone of agreeableness or disagreeable- 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 137 

ness according to its success or failure. As the ghosts of Hades 
crowd to taste the blood of the sacrifices, so do the pale memo- 
ries and tendencies crowd to get the vitalizing touch of a living 
interest. Thus is the halo of value added to what otherwise 
would be a mechanical and bhnd process. The specific color- 
ing of the concrete values is still due to the processes — their 
direction and complexity. What consciousness makes possible 
is value at all. Homer's Iliad and Euchd's Geometry have 
meaning connections, but value they have only as they figure 
in the subjective moment, as taken account of by a living 
interest. 

The relation of interest is a dual relation. It requires two 
terms for its statement, however immediate the situation may 
be, and whether we take account of their existence or not. It 
is consciousness which is simple, which knows no terms. Inter- 
est requires a conative constitution, on the one hand, and it 
implies the shock of a stimulus, on the other hand. It is futile 
to try to state the situation of interest in the absence of the 
conative tendency. It would be Hamlet with Hamlet left 
out. 

The logical relation of knower and known is but one type of 
the conscious situation which we call interest. There is the 
relation of appreciation as well as of cognition. Within this field 
of interest, subject and object are locked in one selective reac- 
tion ; they are functions of one context of experience, the sub- 
ject indicating the organized conative system, the referent, 
while the object indicates the content selected or emphasized, 
the relatum — the whole situation being lit up, but not created 
by consciousness. 

Consciousness thus makes the difference between automatic 
and significant activity. Without consciousness we could 
have the ether waves and the retinal changes and the complex 
cortical changes with complex adjustments, as in somnambu- 
lism. Certain destructive organic changes might be going on, 
but they could only be corrected, perhaps, by the extinction 
of the particular individual and the building up of race instincts, 
which is a costly and clumsy method at best. With conscious- 
ness, an infinitely greater degree of individual adjustment 
becomes possible because of the awareness of the changes. 



138 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

The cumulative changes, made possible by a nervous system, 
become cumulative meaning. Physiological structures become 
pictures, and energetic interactions become significant rela- 
tions. Thus past sensations and thinking become available 
for present emergencies, making it possible for prospective con- 
ative tendency to anticipate the future in a definite way, and 
thus enabling us to act at a distance in space and in time, 
instead of being dependent upon the present stimulus. Habit, 
association, and memory are still physiological processes and 
obey mechanical laws. It is their significance which has been 
altered. 

Consciousness thus makes the difference to the stream of 
instinctive tendencies, that it can see its own flow, can become 
aware of its own direction, and can feel the value of its fulfill- 
ment or thwarting ; and, as it does so, can control its separate 
impulses accordingly. It is not a link in the chain of causality, 
interacting with the events, physical or mental, but by its 
presence in the conative stream, the distinguishing of physical 
and mental becomes possible. The whole flow of change is 
transformed from mechanical causality to teleological causality. 
It is more like a medium, in which the events travel, than Hke 
a cause. It is not an epiphenomenon in the sense that it is a 
by-product of mechanical changes. Rather, it is a fact over 
and beyond the mechanical changes, which, under certain 
conditions, makes them more than mechanical. It makes the 
trend of conative tendency an ego. 

We have seen that it is peculiarly in value situations that 
the presence of consciousness is significant. These, indeed, 
could not exist without consciousness. But we must not sup- 
pose on that account that value is created by consciousness. 
The latter is but one factor in the situation, however indis- 
pensable. In order to have value, there must be the fulfillment 
of organized tendency in terms of its object. This presupposes 
not only conative tendency, but the whole physiological machin- 
ery of associative organization. It has been pointed out by 
James, Dewey, Schiller, and others that values are creative 
additions to our world. But it is not our awareness that creates 
them. Little is known of the conditions of creativeness whether 
as regards appreciation or thought. We know that a certain 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 139 

set or attitude is necessary on the part of the will. Then we 
must experiment within our material whether artistic or logical. 
And if we work and meditate, something may happen. A new 
insight may come. But ideal creative conception, like biological 
conception, takes place in the dark. It is a gift from the 
creative energy of the universe. The light of consciousness 
but makes it appear to the individual and society. While 
consciousness, however, does not create value, it is equally 
clear that value could not exist without it. Value implies 
appreciation, the sense of reaHzation, and this must be a con- 
scious process. 

While we have found the contribution of consciousness pecul- 
iarly significant in the case of value, we must not assume 
that value situations are the only ones in which consciousness 
exists as an ingredient. We would all agree that wherever 
there is attention there is consciousness. Now the selective 
character of attention, its contribution of clearness,^ depends 
upon organization. In the case of primary and active atten- 
tion, the affective quality is apt to be strong. There is a vivid 
consciousness of success and failure. But when attention 
becomes routine, the value aspect tends to disappear, and the 
process approximates the character of habit. We must also 
remember that consciousness is by no means limited to the 
comparatively small group of processes which can figure in 
attention at any one time. We are aware of vast masses of 
sensation from without and within, of impulses and associa- 
tions, which we do not attend to, but which are nevertheless 
part of the field of consciousness. The processes to which we 
do not attend lack clearness and possibly differ in other ways 
such as intensity and duration. For the most part, they are 
indifferent, i.e. they possess no value, though sometimes they 
may be distractions or possess a negative value. This goes 
to show, therefore, that such characteristics as clearness and 
value are due to the converging and organization of tendencies. 
They are not accounted for by merely calling them facts of 
consciousness, though consciousness is a generic condition of 
their existence. 

1 In connection with attention see Titchener, " A Textbook of Psychology,'* 
1913, esp. pp. 276-284. 



140 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

Consciousness is like Aristotle's form of the body/ in so far 
as it is inert as to the carrying on of bodily activity. It does 
not figure as a cause in the process. It does not make the 
engine go. Nor is it the potential energy actualized, as Aristotle 
supposed, since it is not statable as energy at all. It is a new 
fact added. It makes a difference, however, both as to the 
value and the control of processes. It makes possible prevision 
instead of mere cumulative habit, as well as illumines imme- 
diate value. Significant activity, in other words, requires two 
attributes or independent variables to describe it — energy and 
consciousness. It is a mistake to suppose that our ideals are 
mere coruscations or halos, byplays to the going on of energy. 
They are energies, tendencies, aware of their direction and with 
a complex structural machinery in the way of association and 
habit at their disposal. That the organism is relighted, even 
as a candle in the night, can be easily understood, if we attend 
to the energetic conditions on the one hand, and consciousness 
on the other. 

The pathological phenomena fall as easily under the account 
of structure and awareness as the normal. Such phenomena as 
lapses of memory, alternating selves, multiple selves, etc., 
can easily be met on this theory as due to physiological dis- 
organization, not to disorganization of consciousness. How- 
ever dissociated or split the associative systems of tendencies 
may be, consciousness remains identical. 

Since consciousness as awareness is a condition of all value, 
it cannot decide as between values ; it cannot, as consciousness, 
legislate between higher and lower values or pick the permanent 
from the transient. They are alike conscious ; and, therefore, 
their different claims must be decided on the ground of organi- 
zation, not on the ground of awareness. It makes the reahza- 
tion of tendency significant, both immediately and in perspec- 
tive, past and future; but it has nothing to say as to what 
tendencies should prevail; which are valid or invalid values. 
Since objects are pleasing and beautiful in relation to our 

^ In the Aristotelian spirit, Santayana has tried to show how consciousness, 
though inert, furnishes the meaning and value of process. But Santayana fails to 
distinguish between consciousness and psychological processes. The latter are 
not inert. See " Reason in Common Sense," Gh. IX. 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 141 

tendencies, and since our whole universe of tendencies may- 
be low or abnormal, and yet be consistent within itself, con- 
sistent art or poetry or life, but low, we need another dimension 
besides energetic tendency and consciousness to decide what 
values or ideals shall prevail, which is the seeming and which 
is the real direction, if the universe is to have ultimate signifi- 
cance. It may be the wrong meaning, the wrong scale of values, 
the wrong pleasures and pains, a low imi verse of appreciation. 
If so, they must be eliminated and new universes of value be 
made to prevail. We must, therefore, assume besides energy 
and consciousness a formal attribute. The universe must be 
so constituted as to have such an objective form as to condition 
survival of individual streams of tendency, as well as social 
conventions, in order that new and higher universes may pre- 
vail in the long run. Consciousness, as awareness, does not 
explain any particular value or meaning, nor does it determine 
the validity of values and meanings. It is a general precondi- 
tion without which there could not be value at all. 

The Distribution of Consciousness 

We must say a word about the distribution of consciousness 
or its place in the cosmos as a whole. The distribution of 
consciousness, so far as psychology is concerned, is a compara- 
tively simple matter. It is a question of evidence; and we 
can get introspective evidence of consciousness only when we 
have associative memory. This already presupposes complex 
organic conditions. Whether memory can be present below 
the grade where we find a nervous system is a matter of evi- 
dence, too, and should not be settled a priori. 

Within the range of our own experience, we find many degrees 
of attention. These degrees depend upon associative organi- 
zation, or the complexity of the conative system, consciousness 
being present and undivided in all the stages. The question 
arises : Can there be awareness below the level of associative 
memory and meaning? We can at least find transition Hnks 
toward such a state. We are sometimes aware of having been 
dimly conscious, as in going to sleep or in just waking, without 
being able to recall any i^eas. This dimmer awareness is here 
continuous with ideational awareness, and so comes to mean 



142 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

something as a background. The epileptic and the somnambu- 
list respond to stimuli as though they had sensory consciousness, 
even when they furnish no evidence in the way of memory. 
The first conscious states of the infant must be such a dim 
awareness without meaning or *' knowledge about." The dog, 
and still more, the pigeon and the frog, seem to react on various 
sense stimuli as though they had sensations, even after their 
hemispheres have been removed, though the evidence shows 
that there is no reference to past experience, and therefore, no 
meaning. There may also be an immediate consciousness of 
agreeable and disagreeable in connection with conative realiza- 
tion and its cumulative disposition below the level of associative 
memory. At any rate, the same fundamental type of organic 
reactions, expansive and contractive, are present. Where 
such awareness stops it would be impossible to say, and for 
purposes of continuity, we may find it convenient to assume 
it clear down. Such awareness, where the conditions differ 
radically from our own must be problematic, a mere x as far 
as knowledge is concerned, virtually split off from practical 
purposes. It is consistent, however, with the fact which we 
have tried to bring out above, that the meaning of the aware- 
ness, what sort of meaning, and whether it means anything at 
all, is due to energetic structure. 

This is very different from supposing that there are feelings 
outside of consciousness. That is mere nonsense. FeeUngs 
imply consciousness. The question is whether consciousness 
as an ontological presupposition exists below even the dim- 
mest or most confused processes of experience as we know it. 
There is no easy line psychologically ; and logically it is simpler 
to assume the presupposition of consciousness than to derive 
it from non-conscious processes. It is easier, for epistemological 
purposes, to suppose that consciousness is a constant, rather 
than that it butts in; that it shines upon the just and the 
unjust, the simple and the complex, and in all kinds of weather, 
and that the difference in its effectiveness is due, not to it, but 
to the energetic conditions in the universe. For meaning struc- 
tures differ from non-meaning structures not only in conscious- 
ness, but in organization. And only in the latter respect do 
meaning structures differ from other meaning structures. 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 143 

Consciousness may be universal, as time and space are uni- 
versal in the world of energetic relations, though we can only- 
know it or have direct evidence of it where it makes a differ- 
ence. We do not know it as split off, any more than we know 
anything else which is isolated. The question what conscious- 
ness is, if there is nothing but consciousness, is as sensible as 
the question what difference space makes if there is nothing 
but space. Attributes of reaUty are ' ' not divided by a hatchet. ' ' 
It is not necessary to regard them as more split off in nature 
than we find them. Consciousness does seem to be split off 
in our own personal history, so far as making any difference 
under certain organic conditions is concerned, as in dreamless 
sleep. It may be the same in connection with the simpler 
processes of nature. At any rate, to suppose consciousness 
existent, even when the conditions for its effectiveness are 
wanting, waiting, as it were, for the conditions to appear, or 
to be made effective through the conditions, steers clear of 
the question of origin, and so greatly simplifies our metaphysi- 
cal problem. Its effectiveness, we have seen, consists merely 
in contributing awareness. I can see only two ways of account- 
ing for the presence of consciousness. It must either be a 
constant — as I have tried to show above — or it must be 
created outright, when we have evidence of it. Materialism 
amounts to the latter view. Moreover, this miracle would 
have to occur not only once and for all, but would have to be 
repeated every time and everywhere that consciousness is 
known to appear. Such a heaping up of miracles is hardly 
consistent with the modern scientific spirit. 

It behooves us to remember at any rate that our blindness 
and dogmatism is no measure of the distribution of conscious- 
ness. To some of the Cartesians, animals below man were 
mere unconscious automata, and they could proceed with good 
conscience in their vivisectional experiments. Later, the higher 
vertebrates were conceded mental reactions similar to those of 
man. For the most part, the tendency has been to ignore 
types of mind different from those which we find in the higher 
vertebrates. Comparative psychology, however, has shown 
that the higher insects show intelligent behavior which, while 
different, is not inferior in complexity to that of the vertebrates. 



144 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

The instinctive intuition of the bee shows possibilities, in the 
way of social organization and material manipulation, which 
parallel the higher achievements of abstract intelligence. The 
architecture of the bee from the point of view of economy and 
adaptedness would in the series of intellectual development 
presuppose the highest tools of mathematical science. As 
opposed to the dogmatic theory that intelligent behavior 
stops with the disappearance of the nervous system in the animal 
series, we have the recent investigations by Jennings and 
others which show that the behavior of microorganisms indi- 
cates cumulative learning by experience in the way of habit 
formations. In the case of plant life, we find a series of increas- 
ing complexity of behavior which is more and more attracting 
our admiration. While in our own life the functions of nutri- 
tion, respiration, and propagation are conscious only in unusual 
states (though they contribute importantly to the total coenaes- 
thesis of well-being and value), perhaps '*no such eclipse occurs 
in plants, and their lower consciousness may therefore be all 
the more lively. With nothing to do but to eat and drink the 
light and air with their leaves, to let their cells proliferate, to 
feel their rootlets draw the sap, is it conceivable that they should 
not consciously suffer if water, light, and air are suddenly 
withdrawn? or that when the flowering and fertilization which 
are the culmination of their life take place, they should not 
feel their own existence more intensely and enjoy something 
like what we call pleasure in ourselves?" ^ So Fechner, one 
of the greatest of scientists, thought; and even though his 
account may so far have to be credited to the poetry of science, 
his intuition, based as it is on scientific analogy, is at least 
more reasonable than materialistic dogmatism. Certain it is 
that in plant behavior we find selection and adaptation which 
resemble and even rival operations which we know to be 
conscious in the higher animals. Perhaps with new tools 
and scientific patience, the future may prove Fechner's vision 
to be something more than analogy. With Fechner, we have 
to consider the possibility that, just as functions, which exist 
in isolation in inorganic nature, such as sound and light, are 
synthesized into the sensations of an individual organism, so 

* James' account of Fechner, "A Pluralistic Universe," pp. 166 and 167. 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 145 

there may be a more comprehensive synthesis where our one- 
sided perceptions and valuations are taken up together with 
those of other structures which are comparatively strange to 
us, into a more adequate ensemble. For Fechner's scientific 
mind, the earth-soul and the hierarchy of cosmic organization 
furnish the possibility of such higher systems. For simpler, 
but equally devout souls, practical and emotional needs have 
opened the curtain to a Presence with an infinite capacity for 
sympathy and companionship, for whom all our hairs are 
counted, and without whose tender solicitude no sparrow falls 
to the ground. At any rate, we must confront the possibility 
that consciousness and mind are not limited to our skulls, or 
to skulls like ours. 

Some Other Problems 

The chief difficulty, as regards the presence of consciousness, 
has come from regarding consciousness as private or individual. 
If we regard consciousness as one and undivided, one character, 
the same everywhere, as space is the same, we shall avoid this 
stumbling block. We do not suppose that there must be as 
many real spaces as there are bodies. Real space has only 
one effective character, binding upon all alike so far as they are 
individual energies. It makes the difference of distance. So 
consciousness does not differ from moment to moment or from 
one conscious being to another. So far as there is privacy or 
opaqueness it lies in individual organization, not in conscious- 
ness. If there is one conscious being in the universe, there- 
fore, consciousness is as real as though there were billions, since 
consciousness is not a matter of quantity. And, if we find it 
difficult to think of consciousness as split off, we must remem- 
ber it only seems split off from the individual point of view. 
In the whole it is really present as a constant property. In 
the total universe, moreover, even if we find it difficult to im- 
agine consciousness in the abstract, we can imagine some indi- 
vidual as possessing the structure for significant awareness at 
any one time, even on the theory of chances. And, if this 
does not satisfy us in the changes of cosmic weather, we can 
have recourse to the guardian of Israel who ''shall neither 
slumber nor sleep.'' The constancy of energetic conditions 



146 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

for such a being we can now conceive as possible. As the 
simplest organic being, the unicellular organism, has an indef- 
inite life, so we may imagine the highest or perfectly organized 
being as having the conditions for permanent life and conscious- 
ness in himself. It is we half-men that struggle. Such a 
being we shall have reason, no doubt, to assume, on ethical 
and religious grounds. If so, it will greatly aid our imagina- 
tion, even if it does not increase the coerciveness of our logic. 
The need for a permanent consciousness might even count as 
one of the arguments for such a being, if unconvinced of the 
possibility of such permanency in any other way. Better such 
an assumption than the heaping up of meaningless miracles. 

And why should we assume that consciousness is subjective 
in the sense of private? Whether facts are subjective or not 
must be determined on other grounds than their being con- 
scious. My being conscious of facts does not prove them sub- 
jective. My fellow man, music, color, etc., do not become 
subjective because I am conscious of them. In that case all 
facts would become subjective. The test of subjectivity or 
objectivity is whether they can be shared by several observers. 
Those are subjective processes which can be facts for one 
observer only. Those are objective which can be shared by 
several observers. Thus pain is subjective, in so far as I can 
not put another observer in a position to have the same process ; 
while color processes must be objective, because another ob- 
server can share them as much as he can share any object. I 
may for certain purposes, mechanical purposes for example, 
ignore the color properties and select the geometrical properties, 
but that is another story, and has nothing to do with objective 
reality. The survival value of treating such properties as 
color and sound as objective would of itself be a strong argu- 
ment for their objective existence. 

The matter of subjectivity after all is largely a matter of 
degree. The closer we come to similarity of conditions, both 
of situation and individual structure, the nearer we come to a 
sharing not only of logical meanings, but of feelings and emo- 
tions. We come to have common sympathies. It is customary 
to speak of images as private, as contrasted with perceptions, 
?.nd yet, as Le Bon and others have pointed out, images, espe- 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 147 

daily visual images, furnish the most effective social means of 
persuasion and common action. They furnish the bond of the 
mob. If imagery were as private as the psychologists try to 
tell us, poetry would be well-nigh impossible. 

Psychology as an introspective science, moreover, has no 
monopoly of consciousness. In fact, it does not have occasion 
to deal with consciousness in the abstract. What it studies 
is the laws and tendencies of conative processes, processes in 
part, or part of the time, conscious, i.e. issuing into conscious- 
ness under certain conditions or presupposed as mental con- 
stitution by the conscious moment. 

This theory furnishes a decided advantage from the point of 
view of accounting for perception and knowledge. By doing 
away with the superstition of the privacy of consciousness and 
showing its identical character everywhere, it reinstates the 
world of energetic continuities which has proved so fruitful 
a conception in science. This theory recognizes privacy, but it 
is a relative and explicable privacy. It is due, not to conscious- 
ness, but to individual variation of structure, to unique ensem- 
bles of tendencies, which consciousness serves merely to reveal. 
If such uniqueness is a drawback to communication, it is the 
raw material of progress. Moreover, it bears close relations 
to the race life all the while. It is a deviation merely from the 
common race stock, the continuity with which must make its 
originality significant. It is not a charmed circle. This 
conception of consciousness does not indeed solve the problem 
of knowledge. But, inasmuch as for this theory consciousness 
becomes merely a universal postulate, so far as the knowing 
function is concerned, therefore consciousness no longer com- 
plicates the problem, which now becomes one of energetic 
processes and their relations. This problem is a twofold one. 
It must explain on the one hand how one energy can know 
another, whether differing in complexity or in kind, and on 
the other hand how our energetic purposes can know realities 
which are not energy, including consciousness itself. This 
problem has been dealt with elsewhere.^ 

This conception of consciousness greatly simplifies the 

iSee "Truth and Reality,*' MacmiUan, 1911, Chapter XIV, "Pragmatic 
Realism." 



148 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

problem of energy. It destroys the old conceptual cleavage 
between mind and body, or physical energy on the one hand 
and psychological processes on the other, by making conscious- 
ness a fact independent of energy. Nature knows no cleavage 
of energetic interactions. Why should we, by our concepts, 
put asunder what nature has joined together? The scientific 
theorist may now go ahead and simplify as he pleases, irrespec- 
tive of consciousness. All we ask is that his conceptual model 
shall meet the energetic facts. 

Is consciousness diaphanous? If this means that conscious- 
ness makes no difference at all, that processes are the same when 
they are conscious as when they are not conscious, that we are 
the same asleep as awake, then the question is absurd. But 
if the statement that consciousness is diaphanous merely 
means to emphasize that consciousness does not make or alter 
the energies of things; that no properties of things are con- 
stituted by consciousness; that the only difference it makes 
is awareness, which is not a causal relation, — if this is what 
is meant, it agrees with this theory. On the other hand, while 
consciousness does not make properties or structures, it is a 
general precondition of our interest in them and their value 
for us. 

The question has been raised by a certain school of idealists 
as to whether the universe would vanish if there were no con- 
sciousness. Why should it? I do not vanish as a set of ener- 
gies when I am asleep, not even when no one takes account of 
me. I have no evidence of consciousness — and evidence would 
mean memory, and so awareness of the meaning type — during 
seven hours of last night, and no one perceived me, and yet I 
can go on with my plans of yesterday. Moreover, there was 
change and development in the meantime, of which the waking 
moment must take account. The world looks different from 
what it did at the time of my going to sleep. Problems have 
taken on a new meaning. So nature, too, could have rhythmic 
pulses. Yet in its waking moments, it would know it was 
real in its sleep, and could furnish evidence in the way of changes 
which must be interpolated between its waking moments, and 
which do not happen when they are taken account of, but must 
be taken account of because they have happened. Of course, 



THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 149 

if the whole world were asleep, the sleep of Endymion would 
have no significance, though real nevertheless if conditioning 
his waking up. 

Every theory of reality must meet certain practical problems. 
And the question probably has suggested itself before now: 
What becomes of immortality on this theory? To this I will 
answer that the problem of immortality is the same on this 
as on any other theory. It can be neither proved nor dis- 
proved by theories. To say that everything is experience, irre- 
spective of evidence, does not help the problem of immortality 
one whit. The facts of transmutation and the demand for 
individual continuity would still remain. As individual im- 
mortality means, not the simplicity of the soul nor the immor- 
tality of mere consciousness, but the carrying over, perhaps, 
of memories, or at least of tendencies, the problem becomes an 
energetic one. Individual immortality would depend upon 
the continuity of energetic conditions, not upon consciousness. 
It would be difficult to show that we constantly possess aware- 
ness during the sleeping and waking of this life even. More- 
over, energetic continuity need not mean the gross continuity 
of the body. Race continuity involves only one specific form 
of energy, and a small portion at that. So it may be with 
individual continuity. If we can carry tendency over, tendency 
to think and feel and act, to enjoy beauty and feel sympathy 
with our world, we ought to be satisfied. This is the net result 
of it all. This view, moreover, would fit in with the church 
doctrine of the resurrection of the body, so far as energetic 
continuity is concerned. It would not include the clothes 
or shoes or Gabriel's trumpet. But these, after all, are not an 
essential part of the conception. The life of a disembodied 
consciousness would be a pretty ghost-like affair. The world 
of energy must furnish the principle of individuation. 

Since all that is necessary to bring back personality is the 
presence of certain energetic conditions, with the light of con- 
sciousness thrown on them, the problem of immortality be- 
comes at least simplified. The fact that we have not been 
able to trace such energetic continuity of personality as yet, is 
no argument. We werQ slow in tracing biological continuity 
experimentally. We have only within comparatively recent 



150 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

times found out something of the character of electricity and 
radium and the Brownian movement. The energy underlying 
personal continuity may be much subtler than these, and the 
favorable occasion for taking account of it, in its new state, 
may be much more difficult to find. Perhaps the spontaneous 
trance, as in the case of Mrs. Piper, may furnish such an oppor- 
tunity. This remains to be estabhshed. At any rate, we 
have no right to assume that a certain gross energetic condition 
to which we are accustomed, is the only condition under which 
consciousness can appear. We have discovered a multiplicity 
of conditions under which electricity can appear. To be 
sure, these are only analogies, but I have shown at least that 
this view is not hostile to the conception of permanent person- 
ality. What really is the place of man and God in the universe 
must be established by the evidence of human experience and 
not by a priori reasoning. And they must have a place in the 
universe if human experience in its progressive evolution con- 
tinues to require them. The realities of the ego, of God and 
immortality, remain what they are, on any theory. If the 
evidence proves that they must be, then they can be. 

Conclusion. — This view of consciousness is self-consistent ; 
it is economic in that it assumes consciousness as a constant 
and thus avoids the problem of origin ; it is also economic in 
avoiding the duplication of structure involved in separating 
physiological and conscious processes. It meets all the require- 
ments of biological evolution, and of normal and abnormal 
psychology. It accounts for the intermittent character of 
awareness. It meets the practical demands as well as any other 
theory. It does not prove them, for this must be done by 
evidence, but it makes them possible. 



CHAPTER IX 
Knowing Minds 



In trying to know the self, we must recognize in the first 
place that our concern must be with the finite self and its proc- 
esses. We cannot even conjecture a mind different from ours. 
Such a mind must turn out in the last analysis to be an abstrac- 
tion from our own experience. The idealistic absolute is 
merely our own ideal of a completed knowledge, not a different 
mind. 

In the second place, the method pursued must be naturalistic. 
We must strive to know a self as we try to define a chemical 
element — through its conduct, not through a priori considera- 
tions. We would not say that the self is its behavior, any 
more than^we would say that a chemical element is its behavior. 
It is not only the way it now behaves, but the way it can behave 
in all possible situations. The self is what it must be taken 
as in its behavior, by itself and by others, in various contexts, 
physical and social, especially the latter. It is not something 
over and above the properties as known, in situations; the 
essence appears completely, given the proper conditions. There 
is no substance except energy. The self can be as truly known 
as a chemical element in the tests of various situations. It has 
its breaking point in the stresses and strains of experience as 
surely as cast iron; its melting point as surely as gold; its 
freezing point as surely as water ; its explosion point as surely 
as dynamite ; its point of confluence with other selves as surely 
as wine mixes with water; it separates from other selves as 
surely as oil refuses to mix with alcohol. Habits, motives, 
characters are but expectancies of varying complexity, which 
we can have as regards the self with reference to definite situa- 



152 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

tions. Of these situations, the social situations are by far the 
most important — the only ones in fact which would make 
self-consciousness in the first instance possible. But, secondarily 
at least, physical situations, too, count. In them we learn our 
strength and courage and many other properties. The self 
in any case is what we must take it as being in conduct. It 
has spontaneity, if we must acknowledge spontaneity. It is 
a mechanism, just in so far as we can treat it that way. We 
must learn to take the mind as known, and not as the epiphe- 
nomenon of material processes on the one hand or of a tran- 
scendent substance on the other. We must start with facts, 
not with dogmas. Its properties indeed are different from those 
of material things. It has no gravitational mass. But neither 
has electricity. Its properties differ in different situations. 
But so do those of any physical thing. The visual properties 
of the diamond don't cut glass. While difficult sometimes 
to calculate, owing to lack of organization or owing to complexity 
of motives, still its conduct is largely predictable. Human 
institutions of credit and confidence are built on such pre- 
dictability. Taken in the average such predictability becomes 
well-nigh absolute. Where the self differs radically from a 
physical thing is in the fact that consciousness is superadded 
to its activities and so gives them meaning and value for the 
self. But while this adds subjective significance, it does not 
prevent us from taking account of the properties of the self, 
past and present. And the property to have mercy is just 
as much of a property as the solidity of steel. 

Like radium, mind is not as yet known to exist in an isolated 
state. We know mind, for certain at least, only in connection 
with physiological processes, though we may hope for more 
corroborative evidence of the existence of mind after death. 
But while mind exists in connection with physiological processes, 
we know it nevertheless as pure ; and we know it better than 
we know anything else. When we take account of our own 
meaning or try to understand another Hving mind or try to get 
the significance of a poem, in either case, nerves don't get mixed 
up with ideas, any more than the letters on the page get con- 
fused with the meaning we try to decipher. We know mind 
as it is. Whether we know its existence apart from certain 



KNOWING MINDS 153 

physiological conditions or not, itself we know as clear and dis- 
tinct a fact of its own kind, with its definite internal as well 
as external relations. 

II 

This is as true in knowing other minds as in knowing our 
own. The knowledge of other selves has been confused by- 
two theories. One is the theory of analogy, viz. that we know 
other selves only by analogical inference, based upon the simi- 
larity of other bodies, and their behavior, with our own, while 
it is only our own mind that we know immediately. This 
theory confuses the problem of causality with the problem of 
knowledge. It is true that our minds must make differences 
to our own bodies and their physical environment before their 
behavior can be Overt to others and vice versa. But it is not 
true ordinarily that in knowing we argue back from bodily 
structure to mind. Man had composed great epics, laws, and 
religions, built all the fundamental social institutions, before 
he knew there was such a thing as a nervous system. And 
even now the knowledge of the relation of mind and body is 
decidedly problematic and not to be compared with our knowl- 
edge of the mind's own relations, as we know it in logic, psy- 
chology, and ethics. To be sure we sometimes start from struc- 
ture in dealing with lower animal minds, but this is just the 
beginning of hypothesis, not rear inference as to the mind's 
own nature. This must be understood through conduct — its 
intelligence and docility, quite independent of the presence of 
a nervous system. It certainly seems absurd to suppose that 
men should first study the connection of mental states and 
bodily expression in themselves and then read a mind back of 
the expression and structure of others, — and this before they 
know anything about the connection of mind and body in them- 
selves or have even distinguished mind from body. It seems 
pretty clear that they start the other way ; that they first learn 
to recognize purposive conduct in others, before they become 
aware of the relation of mind and conduct in themselves. They 
learn to associate emotions and attitudes with expression in 
others before they are conscious of expression in themselves. 

The other theory is the mystical theory. It argues for the 



154 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

immediacy of the knowledge of other minds without reference 
to interaction or behavior. We immediately acknowledge other 
selves and that is all. Such acknowledgement is based upon 
no inference, implicit or explicit. It permits of no genetic 
analysis. Now this theory is certainly nearer true than the 
previous, from which it is a reaction. The knowledge of 
other selves may be regarded as immediate as that of our own. 
We know ourselves, as we know others, through the situations 
upon which we react. But this is quite different from holding 
that we have a mystic knowledge of ourselves in the abstract 
or of others in the abstract. In the abstract our significance 
equals zero. The knowledge of other selves is neither a matter 
of analogical inference nor of mystical appreciation but the 
homely way of reading conduct. And as social adjustment is a 
centrifugal process, it is natural that we should have formulated 
our own significance in terms of social situations — of social 
approval and disapproval, before we began to formulate the 
relation of social situations to our own ideals. The learning 
process is at first a purely objective process. A boy friend of 
three was confronted with a small misdemeanor. He recognized 
by the situation that it was a wrongness. He steadily main- 
tained that he had not done it. His father sternly and sadly 
said, '' Bobby, are you teUing me a lie ? " He was finally brought 
round to the right point of view with his mother's assistance 
and owned his act, with the solemn impression that the serious 
thing about it was telling a lie. The next day he astonished his 
parents by adding to an answer which he made **and it is not a 
He." Through one tragic social context he had learned the 
significance not only of a word but of a social relation. It is 
safe to say that he did not compare the parent's bodily ex- 
pression with his own. 

In the progress of experience, language as an artificial ex- 
pression of mind, with its complex network of relations, largely 
takes the place of concrete situations for knowing minds. 
And our knowing our own mind, past and present, as well as 
knowing other minds, becomes the immediate recognition of the 
meaning of the language situations, until in the technical dis- 
ciplines concrete imagery very largely drops out in our reading 
of meanings. The matrix of language, with its artificial equiva- 



KNOWING MINDS 155 

lents for things and relations, becomes the social correlate of 
our communication and understanding of minds, not brain 
cells and association fibers. And logic, geometry, and ethics as 
sciences of social mind relations reached a high perfection as 
sciences before neural physiology was born. In social com- 
munication, what we are immediately concerned with is words, 
conduct — not brain states. In talking with an individual, 
as in reading a book, we are concerned not with causes and 
effects — the producing of the spoken or written symbols 
and their reaching our, or the other party's, sensorium. We 
are concerned with the interpretation of the symbols. The 
words are immediately associated with certain meanings; 
and our attention is fixed on the meanings, not on the instru- 
ments. As the ivy clings to the material framework which 
supports it, so do our meanings in every joint cling to lan- 
guage, only the meanings make their own framework as the 
nautilus builds its chambers. 

While it is true that in understanding other selves we are 
dealing with the social matrix of language and meanings, still 
this does not prove that brain processes, nerves, vocal chords, 
air waves and ears or eyes do not mediate causally between 
selves in communicating with each other. The teleological 
explanation and articulate acknowledgment of meaning by 
meaning would not be possible, in our sense world at least, if 
the communicating minds were not part of the causal nexus 
of the intervening world. 

Ill 

A great deal of mystery has been thrown about the dual 
nature of the self by traditional psychological theory. It is 
supposed that there is an absolute and invariable relation 
between the knower and the known or, to use James's phrase- 
ology, the I and the me. This is true not only of the old 
rationalistic psychology with its metaphysical soul, but it 
is true of recent treatments. Says Wundt : "Every ex- 
perience contains two inseparable factors — objects of ex- 
perience and the experiencing subject." ^ And Ebbinghaus : 
''Wherever thoughts and sensations are experienced, this sub- 

^ Wundt, " Definition der Fsychologie," I*hilosophische Studien, 1895. 



156 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

jective bearer to which they adhere, also becomes directly 
conscious in them and through them, in the same way as they 
themselves."^ And even James: "It is obvious that if 
things are to be thought in relation, they must be thought to- 
gether or in one something, be that something ego, psychosis, 
state of consciousness, or whatever you please." ^ This 
something to be sure is a "a spiritual something." Still its 
externality to the empirical situation is implied. When I 
try to make clear to myself what this simple bearer is which 
is constant in all the states and logically distinct from them, 
it seems to be nothing else than the abstract fact of conscious- 
ness itself. This certainly is constant and simple and accom- 
panies all our conscious states. It is also separable from them, 
as mental processes need not be always conscious. 

If what is meant is that all experience involves the sub- 
ject-object relation or is representative, certainly some doubt 
may be thrown from the side of the facts. When we thi7ik 
we of course always presuppose the subject-object relation, 
but is this true also of the simpler perceptual stage of ex- 
perience? Could a creature, depending upon impressions 
and upon learning by habit without any images, say / ? This 
does not seem likely, because there is no conscious context, 
which assimilates. In all experience, too, there must be a 
beginning, a bare "awareness of" without any "knowledge 
about," i.e. without any associative context to react, where 
our experience is the light or the pain rather than has it. I do 
not see how such experience could have the consciousness of 
"two inseparable factors, objects of experience and experiencing 
subject." In my own experience in waking up gradually after 
having been struck by lightning and snowed under in a storm on 
Grays Peak, I could remember afterwards when I was a mass 
of pain and discomfort with no associations suggested in the 
way of danger or death. I could remember having seen the 
form of a man moving down the mountain side. But it was 
not until some time afterward that the perceptual picture 
suggested man and a futile cry for help and not till long after- 
wards that the perception suggested my companion and that 

* Ebbinghaus, "Grundziige," Vol. I, p. 10. 
« "Principles of Psychology," Vol. II, p. 277. 



KNOWING MINDS 157 

the scene itself came back to me. There was certainly a period 
there of pure perception, while the associative context was as 
paralyzed as my bodily movements. It would seem that there 
is a simpler state of consciousness than the I and me relation 
— the state of bare awareness, which, of course, is not broken 
up except by a more complex consciousness, which reflects 
upon it. Leaving aside, however, the question of the univer- 
sality of the subject-object consciousness, what does it mean 
when we do have it? And is it such a mystery? 

The mystery of the subject-object relation seems to disappear 
when we bring a little psychological analysis to bear. Ab- 
stracting from consciousness as bare awareness, we must make 
clear to ourselves what we mean by the subject-object relation 
in the concrete; and then we shall see that it is a selective 
context responding to a specific content — the datum. The 
quality of myness is a function of the datum-being-selected 
by this individual interest. In other words, to say this is 
my object of consciousness and to say I am interested in this 
object are two different ways of saying the same thing. The 
I or subject in this relation is the active associative context, 
which we call interest, solicited by or striving to find its object, 
the me. In order to get rid of ages of false association we may 
call this context the referent, and the datum which is selected 
the relatum. Now my contention is that there is no absolute 
or constant relation between the selective context, the referent, 
and the selected object, the relatum. On the contrary, the 
distinction is relative to point of view and relative to time. In 
the first place, it is relative to point of view. This may be true 
within the same physical individual, as in the case of the divided 
self. In deHberation, the point of view shifts while the systems 
seem exclusive and constant. Now one system is tried out 
with reference to its antagonistic systems. And again the 
activity shifts to another system with its scale of values. But 
the struggle is precisely between coexisting and conflicting 
points of view. There is of course some common and constant 
group of tendencies which figures in the various systems and 
which accounts for the shifting of attention. It is this common 
group of more or less .explicit tendencies which gives rise to 
the feehng of outside push as regards the process of delibera- 



158 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

tion. The systems in intense moral struggle may coexist an- 
tagonistically for some time — each with a strong individual 
consciousness, and each struggling for the place of mastery, 
now one, now the other occupying the focal place — the lower 
taking the higher captive, the higher in turn summoning its 
energies against the lower, each very much alive and strug- 
ghng for existence. In insanity we have cases of actual disrup- 
tion of the various systems, when a man feels himself to be not 
one but many — thoroughly bewildered in the shifting and 
many-headed focus, as to which is I rather than the other. 
In every case of social communication where one system of 
meanings strives to understand another, the relation of referent 
and relatum is reciprocal and a matter of point of view. 

Not only is the relation of I and me relative as between 
coexisting systems, internal or social, with their respective 
points of view. But the same associates may be part, now of 
the referent and now of the relatum, in the one personal history. 
In recalKng a forgotten name, we use the meaning to find the 
name. The system of associations with its leading is the 
referent, the name the relatum. But having gotten the name, 
we reverse the process and use the name with its larger context 
to fix the meaning. It is my purpose to open a refractory 
door. This system of tendencies, the referent, hunts about for 
means, the relatum. But in trying to solve the door situation, 
the purpose becomes aware of its own vagueness and limitations. 
It thus reverses itself in a measure; the door-consciousness 
with its associations defines the purpose to open and both are 
taken up into the larger context which was impUcit in the pro- 
cedure — getting what I wanted in the room, etc. The relation 
of I and me then is not a constant or absolute relation. There 
is no more mystery about the I than about the me. What 
figures one moment as part of the tension of the apperceiving 
factor may figure the next moment as part of the tension of 
the apperceived. They are both functions of a more or less 
definite system of tendencies which strives to realize itself and 
which we may call the self in the inclusive sense. 

If this theory is true, it should follow as a corollary, that 
self-consciousness, i.e. consciousness of the I and me type, 
should be prominent in proportion to the activity of attention, 



KNOWING MINDS 159 

being particularly obtrusive in the moments of embarrassment 
and frustration, while approaching the vanishing point with 
the fluency of the ongoing of consciousness, when the felt 
unity radiates in all directions of the prevaiHng purpose. This 
seems actually carried out by the facts of experience. It is 
when the developing purpose is brought to halt, is balked for 
the time being, that the consciousness of meaning and datum, 
referent and relatum, becomes painfully strong. On the other 
hand, when the flow is uninterrupted, when the purpose is 
absorbed in the transitions from phase to phase, whether the 
fascination be intellectual, practical or aesthetic, the dualism of 
I and me approaches its vanishing point until lost in the mystic 
trance — the passive, coalescent state of attention. 

Hume in speaking of the self as a "bundle of perceptions'' 
fails to take account of the active character of the referent 
factor in the subject-object relation. The self, whenever we 
are really awake, is an active bundle of more or less systematized 
tendencies striving to appropriate or adapt itself to an external 
context, the datum. It is the latter context that has the 
stubborn perceptual character. The self is not a bundle of 
perceptions. It is a bundle of tendencies, leadings, purposive 
striving. This is the substantial core of the ego, but it is a 
shifting, moving core, an organization which comes to conscious- 
ness through conflict, not a blank entity which is merely ex- 
ternally related to certain objects. The perceptions, whether 
internal or external, are the facts taken account of — the me. 
You can't have an outside without an inside ; and Hume * 
made the self all outside. You must add to the content factor 
an active apperceiving factor. 

While it is true, moreover, that the process of knowing always 
implies one context added to another, in an empirical situation, 
we must not neglect the unique relation of the factors involved. 
The addition is not a mere external addition, but one of crea- 
tive synthesis, analogous to chemical addition rather than to 
mathematical. This creative addition is the unique relation 
of interest. There is nothing to show that it alters the char- 
acter of the factors — the object known or the context knowing 
— in other ways. While, there is some doubt as to whether the 

1 " Treatise on Human Nature," Vol, I, Pt. IV, § 6. 



160 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

selective reaction, which we call attention, intensifies the data 
emphasized, the qualities and relations of the data remain the 
same. We do not create them by taking account of them. The 
cat does not create the king by looking at him. Nor does he 
add a cubit to his stature. What is added by the interest 
relation is subjective clearness and significance. 

The difference between the two factors in the interest rela- 
tion cannot be resolved into the greater or less permanency 
of the associates involved in each case. This seems to be the 
theory of William James: ''The two collections, first of its 
cohesive, and, second, of its loose associates, inevitably come to 
be contrasted. We call the first collection the system of 
external realities, in the midst of which the room, as 'real,' 
exists; the other we call the stream of our internal thinking, 
in which, as a 'mental image,' it for a moment floats. The 
room thus gets counted twice over." ^ As a matter of fact, 
the apperception context need not be less cohesive than the 
context taken account of. It may be, and often is, the more 
permanent of the two. The meaning or attitude may remain 
constant though the object changes. Our loyalty may remain 
through the objective vicissitudes of a lifetime. Without this 
constancy in our tendencies, the concept of constancy would 
be impossible. As to the object being counted twice, this is 
only an afterthought when we contrast memory with percep- 
tion. In our perceptual judgments, the object is counted 
only once, i.e. as being in its own context, though it may, of 
course, be counted wrongly as between objective contexts. 
This is what happens in illusion. 

The unique character of the referent context consists in the 
fact that one factor or ingredient in the context is conative 
tendency. It is true that the subject-object relation is in 
part reversible. But this is as regards its contents or associates, 
not as regards the unique attitude itself. It is the objects 
which may figure twice over, — or rather be identical in a 
large number of contexts, — as part of a context of interest, 
and also as having certain relations, temporal, spatial, causal, 
etc., to other contexts. The uniquely subjective relation is 
a conscious reaction between a system of conative tendencies, 

^ "Essays in Radical Empiricism," p. 22. 



KNOWING MINDS 161 

on the one hand, and a set of stimuH, intra-organic or extra- 
organic, on the other. The relation of interest or experience 
cannot exist unless there is the unique reaction of these two 
factors. The apperceptive factor in this relation is a system 
of associates, given direction and held together by conative 
tendency. 

To say that the relation of subject to object is experience 
added to experience, looks like the old fallacy of division. 
Experience is here predicated respectively of the experienced 
stimulus, whatever it may be, and the apperceiving system, each 
taken in its abstract capacity, and apart from the unique con- 
text. Neither can be called experience until they constitute 
the unique situation of interest. To say, therefore, that this 
situation is experience added to experience, seems to be a case 
of putting the cart before the horse. James, in this case, 
seems to have fallen into the very intellectualism which he had 
combated all his hfe. What makes us distinguish the subjec- 
tive from the objective factor is the function of selection and 
emphasis. This function cannot in turn be expressed in terms 
of the selected object without a hopeless circle. 

There has been a strenuous metaphysical attempt of late to 
get rid of end terms altogether in the interest relation. We are 
told that the pure stuff or content of reality is entirely neutral, 
and that the seeming difference in kind is due merely to the 
external relations in different contexts. Says James: "There 
is no general stuff of which experience at large is made. There 
are as many stuffs as there are 'natures' in the things experi- 
enced. If you ask what any bit of pure experience is made of, 
the answer is always the same : 'It is made of that, of just what 
appears, of space, of intensity, of flatness, brownness, heaviness, 
or what not.' " ^ Again : ''Thoughts in the concrete are made 
of the same stuff as things are." ^ The same idea has been 
championed by E. B. Holt : "The entities of the universe have 
no substance, but if the spirit is weak to understand, then let 
flesh, for a season, here predicate a neutral substance. These 
entities are related by external relations. A consciousness is the 
group of (neutral) entities to which a nervous system, both at 
one moment and in the course of its life history, responds with 

1 "Essays in Radical Empiricism," pp. 26, 27. ^ 7^^. p, 37^ 



162 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

a specific response." ^ With Holt, however, this neutrality 
seems to resolve itself, in the last analysis, into a materiaUstic 
atomism. With James, on the other hand, it is part of the 
philosophy of pure experience from which subject and object 
are regarded as abstracted by subsequent reflection. 

There seems to be an ambiguity here as between the expe- 
rience relation, and what is experienced. What is experienced 
may be any kind of thing, physical or mental, that can make 
a difference to our conative purposes. Our thoughts in the 
concrete may very well have things as their contents ; and then 
there is no difference, of course, between the content of thoughts 
and things. They may, however, have mental processes as 
their contents. In any case, such an ambiguous metaphysi- 
cal use of the term experience at best obliterates what have 
proven pragmatically useful distinctions. It does not help 
us to understand the unique character of the relation where one 
context evaluates and takes account of another context. Duality 
there is, somehow, in the relation. The context which knows, 
or is interested, is an integral voHtional context, and not 
merely an ensemble of externally related contents. What the 
ultimate stuff of reality is, that is another question, and must 
be determined by the requirements which we must meet in the 
realization of our purposes. 

The prejudice against end terms in the knowledge relation, 
and the consequent attempt to eliminate terms altogether has 
a double reason. One is a metaphysical reason. It is a protest 
against the occult conception of mind as a substance, outside 
of and irrelevant to the stream of conscious processes. With 
this protest, we must agree so far, that the mind must figure 
in the empirical situations, and must be known as regards its 
properties and constancies precisely in such situations. The 
other reason is epistemological, and is a protest against sub- 
jective idealism, which makes the existence of the object de- 
pend upon being taken account of, or figuring for the time being 
as part of our conative interest. With this protest, too, we must 
essentially agree. Our being interested in an object does not 
create it, — does not constitute either its existence or its 
objective qualities. That the tree is part of a physical space 
1 "The New Realism," pp. 372, 373. 



KNOWING MINDS 163 

context is not due to our noticing it. Even that it is green is 
not due to our taking account of it, but to the energetic relation 
between certain Hght waves and our physiological organization. 
Nor do our mental structures come into existence with our 
taking account of them. They have a context of their own 
which we must recognize. Our interest brings a new qualifica- 
tion to the energies which are taken account of. But their 
properties and relations outside of this must be regarded as 
external to the cognitive relation, i.e. as having an existence 
of their own whether mental or physical. Only so is science 
possible. 

What we insist is that the relation of interest is a real and 
unique relation when it exists. And it involves a conative con- 
stitution as one of its reagents. There is nothing mysterious 
or occult about this, any more than there is about the relation 
H2O. Each is a unique energetic result. Each must be rec- 
ognized in its own right. The relation of mind to stimulus 
in the case of interest is no more neutral than any other energetic 
action is neutral. But what do we mean by mind? 



CHAPTER X 

Knowing Minds (Continiied) 

IV 

In taking up the question : What is mental? we must be 
warned at the outset that the phrase, " in the mind," is an ambig- 
uous phrase. In a sense, anything to which we attend is in 
the mind for the time being, i.e. it figures as part of our field 
of interest, but it is not therefore mental. G. F. Stout suggests 
as a criterion of a fact being mental that it is so dependent upon 
mind, that if mind should cease to exist, it would cease to exist 
also. This may be granted, but it assumes that we already 
know what is meant by mind. Stout and Alexander agree in 
defining mind as ''the subject of activity in the way of cona- 
tion and attention, and also of feeling in the way of pleasure 
and pain." ^ We may agree that will or conative tendency, 
which we know in connection with attention and interest, is 
mental. Let us see how far we can apply Stout's criterion, 
and to what results it will lead. 

G. E. Moore feels certain that consciousness, in the sense of 
awareness, is a mental fact. It is the only thing that is common 
and peculiar to all experiences — the only thing which gives 
us the reason for calling a fact mental.^ Thus "the sensation 
of blue includes in its analysis beside blue, both a unique ele- 
ment awareness, and a unique relation of this element to blue." ^ 
The nature of this awareness is such "that its object, when we 
are aware of it, is precisely what it would be if we were not 
aware." ^ 

Now that consciousness is such a neutral light, I have tried 

1 Arist. Proc, 1908-1909, "Are Presentations Mental or Physical?" p. 227. 

2 "The Refutation of Idealism," Mind, 1903, pp. 452, 453. See also Arist. 
Proc, 1909-1910, pp. .38-40. 

' Ibid., 1903, p. 450. * Ibid., p. 453. 

164 



KNOWING MINDS 165 

to show elsewhere. But I cannot agree with Mr. Moore that 
consciousness is mental. '' 'Mental/ in one of its senses and 
its most fundamental sense," says Mr. Moore, *' is, I think, 
merely another way of saying that the entity said to be mental 
is an act of consciousness. So that, in this sense of the word, 
that which distinguishes mental entities from those which are 
not mental would be simply the fact that the former are acts 
of consciousness, whereas the latter are not mental. A red 
color is certainly not an act of consciousness in the sense in 
which my seeing of it is." ^ This seems an arbitrary definition 
of mental. It is not obvious that mental processes, such as 
conative tendencies, must be conscious in order to exist. Con- 
sciousness is added to them in certain energetic relations, but 
it does not make them exist any more than it makes the physical 
processes exist. Our will attitudes continue to exist and to 
change when we are not conscious of them, as when we are 
asleep. Even in conscious activity, not all of mind can be 
said to be conscious. Therefore consciousness is not an essen- 
tial characteristic of mental. 

Neither can we regard ''mental acts," in Mr. Moore's sense, 
as purely mental. Such processes as perceiving involve, as 
we shall see later, physical elements. I would say that in our 
awareness of blue, there are involved three factors : There is 
the energetic physical situation, including the action of light 
upon our organism. There is further the selective reaction 
to this physical situation. And there is, added to this, the fact 
of consciousness. This is a non-mental fact, and makes possible 
the awareness of the energetic relation. It is no more mental 
than pure space ; and, like pure space, it is neutral as regards 
the contents within it, i.e. it permits of free mobility so far 
as it is concerned. If we represent the action of the physical 
situation upon the conative constitution under the form of 
three dimensions, we would have to add a fourth dimension 
to represent the fact of awareness. The fact, furthermore, 
that we know consciousness only in connection with certain 
conative activities, does not prove that consciousness can only 
exist under such conditions, i.e. that it would be destroyed if 
mind is destroyed; nor ^ does it prove that mind can exist only 

1 Arist. Proc, 1909-1910, pp. 39 and 40. 



166 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

when it is conscious of itself. That we can only know a fact 
in conscious situations is mere tautology. 

If we now take up the contents of mind/ it would seem that 
the sense data cannot be regarded as mental. Blue is the 
result of a certain action of a physical energy, light, upon our eye- 
camera, and upon the nervous system. We do not in any wise 
originate the quality blue or alter it by attending to it, though 
it comes to have significance when we do so. A sense quality 
is a purely physical fact. It is true that the so-called relativity 
of sense qualities has been urged against their objective reality 
from Protagoras to Stout. They vary with the specific struc- 
tures of the sense organs, with the position and distance of the 
observer, and with pathological conditions in the observer .^ 
But the relativity of sense qualities does not differ from the 
relativity of any other energetic relations in nature. Other 
energies, too, require special conditions for their manifestation ; 
they vary with their space relations; they fail to answer ex- 
pectancies under defective conditions. To be sure, in the case 
of some of our sensations, the quality is very much confused 
by its fusion with other qualities and, especially in the case of 
organic sensations, by its fusion with the affective tone of 
agreeable or disagreeable. In such cases, we must, of course, 
admit the psychological difiiculty of analysis, but that does not 
make the sense quality, so far as it exists, less dependent upon 
the physical situation. We no more make the quality of pain 
by attending to it than we make the quality blue. It is ob- 
vious that destroying attention would not destroy the sense 
qualities, though they would no longer be sensations, in the 
sense of facts of interest. Stumpf and others have done ex- 
cellent service in pointing out unnoticed sense data. A sound, 
not attended to at the time, strictly speaking becomes a sensa- 
tion only when we attend to it, and that may be after the 
stimulus itself has ceased. 

But if sense qualities are physical, what about sensory ele- 
ments as we know them through revival in perception, and as 
they exist in images? These, too, we must regard as physical 

* In the discussion of mental contents, I am much indebted to S. Alexander's 
paper, " On Sensations and Images," Arist. Proc, 1909-1910, pp. 1-36. 
« See Stout, Ariat. Proc, 1908-1909, pp. 237 f . 



KNOWING MINDS 167 

even though the immediate continuity with the outer energies 
has ceased to exist. They are the persisting excitements of 
such stimuH, having the same quahty as the original situation 
though, in the nature of the case, having less intensity. They 
are as physical as the persistent effects recorded by the film of 
the camera. 

I would not say that all the contents of our mental operations 
are physical. For the will may attend to its own operations. 
It may take stock of its own tendencies and purposes within 
its own complexity. These, no more than the sense data, 
originate or alter in character with our awareness. The ob- 
served facts here must change location from the subject context 
to the object context, i.e. they must be abstracted from their 
concrete setting. But they do as a matter of fact persist in such 
a shifting. We can take account of their character and can ana- 
lyze them. Nor is such awareness an awareness of a past moment. 
That is absurd by definition. What is past is their functional 
position in the subject context. They now figure with other con- 
tents in the more abstract and artificial object construct. What 
we feel so keenly in our mental analysis is that much is left out of 
which we are aware as of prime importance in the flow and con- 
creteness of real life. But this, of course, is true of physical 
reality, too, even though here we have not the same immediacy 
of acquaintance with the inner movement. 

Even in what we are accustomed to regard as mental data, 
much remains that is physical. In the gross affective fusions 
which we call emotions, the bulk of the process, as has been 
clearly shown by recent psychology, is sensational in character. 
Whether we wholly adopt the James-Lange theory or not, we 
must agree that the inchoate and confused mass of organic 
sensations, resulting from the instinctive reaction, gives the 
character and warmth to the special emotions. Compared 
with this, the affective tone proper, which certainly does enter 
in as a factor, is thin and abstract. 

When we come to the feelings, here it would seem at any rate 
that we are on solid psychic ground. But here, alas ! there is 
a hopeless ambiguity of scientific terminology. This is due in 
part to the difficulty of analyzing out the affective quality 
proper from its fusion with sensations which are always present 



168 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

with it. Some of these sensations are clearly distinguishable 
from it, such as motor sensations and sensations of breathing. 
Others are subtle and diffuse, notably those which depend 
upon our alimentary and genital systems. These sensations 
ordinarily remain below the threshold of attention, but while 
their quality is well nigh impossible to discriminate, their effect 
is vital and constant. They fuse in an immediate and largely 
unanalyzable way with the affections and constitute the bulk 
of what we recognize in the concrete as the tone and well-being 
of the organism. Together with the sensations already men- 
tioned, they form the overtones of our affective life. Indeed, 
some maintain that they constitute it altogether. In so far 
as we give the name feeling to the fusion as a whole, it will be 
seen that the bulk of our feelings, as well as our emotions, is 
physical in character, — the difference being merely that the 
feelings depend upon more general organic reactions, and thus 
lack the specific character of the instinctive emotions and the 
volume of their deeper organic reverberations. 

Not only has there been confusion as regards the fusion of the 
affective tone with certain organic sensations, but there has 
been a similar difficulty as regards its fusion with certain ob- 
jective qualities. Thus we are in the habit of speaking of 
aesthetic feelings. Beauty has been defined as constant ob- 
jects of pleasure, as contrasted with the more fleeting and un- 
certain character of the mere agreeable. But what is constant 
in the appreciation of beauty are the form quahties or the con- 
tent-relations, not the feeling. The beautiful object may be 
agreeable, and is so whenever the will sets itself the particular 
purpose of enjoying beauty. But it is not so always. The 
best music in the world becomes disagreeable when the attention 
has set itself the task of doing something else with which the 
musical stimulus interferes, as performing delicate discrimina- 
tions in the laboratory for example. The form quality of the 
beautiful object, on the other hand, is not altered by our will, 
though in the case of artificial beauty the object owes its form 
quality to the selection and synthesis of the will in the first 
place. The mere fact that the feeling of enjoyment can be 
repeated again and again does not constitute the beauty of 
the object. If so, all the satisfactions of the constant tendencies 



KNOWING MINDS 169 

of our nature would be beautiful. The satisfaction of hunger 
or of curiosity is capable of constant repetition, and is more 
universal than the feeling for beauty, but it is not beautiful. 
It may even jar on our sense for beauty. Byron hated to see 
a woman eat. The constancy of the satisfaction, in any case, 
lies in part in the permanency of the objective quahty, in 
part in the permanency of a certain organization of the will. 
It does not he in the feeling. 

What is psychological, therefore, in our emotions and feelings 
is the abstract affective tone of agreeable or disagreeable, and 
this seems to have only those two qualities. This is dependent 
upon the will — its success or failure in realizing certain tenden- 
cies in terms of its stimuli. The constancy or variation of 
tone is a function of the dominant tendency or set of the will. 
Since the wiU like other energies is predictable in definite situa- 
tions, the affective tone is in so far predictable. 

The difficulty in knowing the affective quahties is not a 
difficulty of acquaintance. There is no mistake about the 
consciousness of the pleasant and unpleasant. Just here and 
only here the Berkeleian criterion is true that esse est per dpi. 
The difficulty is entirely one of analysis. And this difficulty 
is twofold. It is in part a difficulty of fusion. While we can 
with comparative ease dissociate the affective qualities from the 
extra-organic sensations, it is exceedingly difficult to disso- 
ciate them from some of the organic sensations. Hence the 
difference in classifications. Another difficulty is due to the 
fact that since affection is the sense of realization on the part 
of the will, there is danger of changing the direction of the will 
by its superadded interest of analysis. This difficulty is prob- 
ably exaggerated, as many processes, particularly those of the 
primitive instincts, have quite sufficient momentum and in- 
dividuality to persist even when the interest is thus divided. 
Their tone depends, not upon their being part of the subject 
tension, but upon their realization. In more delicate cases, 
memory can be used to eke out immediate perception. 

In so far as we look at thought in its content aspect — what 
thought deals with — this again is largely physical. Of course, 
we do form concepts of mental processes, but they are meager 
compared with our concepts of the objective world. Since 



170 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

our laws of thought are modes of operating with objects, these 
laws must be regarded as relations within the contents of 
experience. And since the contents we deal with in the opera- 
tions of thought are overwhelmingly physical, we can agree 
with Russell that the laws of thought are the laws of things.^ 
They are for science the most universal laws of things, but 
while abstract and highly useful ways of handling facts, they 
cannot be assumed to be a priori laws of the universe. As 
universal they are, like all universals, hypothetical. Their 
applicabiUty must continually be tested through our success 
in explaining things, including mental things. 

If we turn now from our survey of contents in the mind to a 
survey of mental acts or operations, our way should be clearer. 
But even as regards attention, which seems so obviously a 
manifestation of will, analysis discloses the presence of physical 
factors. Some psychologists have tried to state attention in 
purely intellectual terms. They have regarded it as merely 
an associative context of ideas. While this theory neglects 
the importance of the guiding and controlHng set, which uses 
the associative mechanism as an instrument for its particular 
end, the indispensable presence of the intellectual factor in 
the higher stages of attention is indisputable. To get pure 
attention we should have to go back to the most primitive mani- 
festations of the will in the individual and the race — to pure 
awareness without any knowledge about. But this purely 
instinctive and impulsive manifestation of interest is, so far 
as our own adult experience is concerned, purely hypothetical. 
We can only observe it inferentially in the first stages of mental 
history. For our introspection, the attention situation has a 
large intellectual admixture where the physical factors are fused 
with the strictly mental in the associative interest patterns of 
memory and imagination. 

Not only are there present in the attention context the stored 
up and associated sense data in the way of ideas ; but certain 
immediate sense data in the form of organic sensations, partic- 
ularly the motor and respiratory sensations, also enter in 
as an integral part of the fusion. So prominent are these 
that some psychologists, like William James, have found the 

1 "The Problems of Philosophy," pp. 137, 138. 



KNOWING MINDS 171 

basis of the consciousness of mental activity in the motor sensa- 
tions from the forehead, throat, etc. James has gone so far 
as to say that the only subject identifiable in our various mental 
states is the ''I breathe" : ''Let the case be what it may in 
others, I am as confident as I am of anything that, in myself, 
the stream of thinking (which I recognize emphatically as a 
phenomenon) is only a careless name for what, when scrutinized, 
reveals itself to consist chiefly of the stream of my breathing. 
The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all 
my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany 
them." 1 Doubtless it does, and it is a conspicuous element in 
the situation so far as our introspection is concerned. But what 
figures in the foreground of our introspection is not necessarily 
the most important factor for understanding the situation. 
While the ''I breathe" accompanies all our thinking, it does not 
give direction or motive to it. This must be found in the will. 

In attention in its highest stage of organization — that of 
disjunctive weighing of alternatives — both the ideational 
objects and the concomitants of motor sensations have their 
maximum prominence. But here, too, the conative tendencies 
furnish the motives ; and the direction of the process is deter- 
mined by the systematic will which just through the conflict 
discovers its real purpose, and pushes forward to its realization. 

Mental acts, therefore, as they reveal themselves in the 
attention situation, disclose the character of mind in an un- 
mistakable way; and they disclose it as will. Of the will 
thus manifest in action there are two dimensions — attention 
and affection. We cannot identify these, as has sometimes 
been done. Attention is, at any rate, logically prior to affec- 
tion. There must be the releasing of tendency, " the catching 
of the attention," before its movement towards its realiza- 
tion can be felt. Moreover, in automatic attention, affection 
sinks to zero. Attention is the energetic relation of a conative 
constitution to a stimulus. It is analogous to selective action 
as we find it throughout nature, and in the absence of con- 
sciousness. The affective tone reenforces or checks the release, 
not by acting upon it, but through the awareness of its success 
or failure in realizing its end. 

1 "Essays in Radical Empiricism" (Longmans), pp. 36, 37. 



172 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

If mind is will, conative constitution, we must bear in mind, 
on the one hand, that will reveals itself in various stages of 
complexity from blind instinct, through impulse, desire, and 
wish, to organized character. We must not, with Schopenhauer, 
strip the will of all but its blindest stage. It has its own capa- 
city for development and for conservation of results — its 
own Karma, not only as regards possible future existences, 
but from moment to moment of this existence. On the other 
hand, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is only as the 
will figures in certain physical and social continuities, — operates 
through the tools of physical processes and deals with physical 
contents for the sake of common understandings, — that it 
comes to know its existence and properties. 

The tools by means of which the will operates on the instinc- 
tive level are organic structures. These have the advantage, 
once having been established through survival selection, of 
being definitely adapted to certain situations. But the difficulty 
is that it requires a long and costly process to establish them — 
a process in which the race alone counts, the individual is 
sacrificed. And, again, having become established they are 
stereotyped ; they cannot meet radical changes of the environ- 
ment. 

As instruments for action, therefore, the will needs to supple- 
ment the organic tools of instinct with more economic and ad- 
justable tools. In doing so, the will also liberates itself more 
and more from the body, and becomes conscious of its own 
reality and value. Adjustment by organic habit is more eco- 
nomic than organic structures ; memory images vastly shorten 
the process ; and abstraction with its artificial symbols and its 
material tools gives the will the maximum of efficiency as 
well as the greatest freedom of activity and sense of realization. 

We have thus seen that the will is dependent upon physical 
instruments — hereditary physiological structures, physiological 
habits, and upon the physical qualities which go to make up 
the content of images, and largely of abstract thought. These 
tools, enormously important as they are for the will, are not 
to be confused with the will itself. They are not mental at all. 
Where the will manifests itself is in the conative tendencies 
which give intent, motive, and cumulative unity to the self's 



KNOWING MINDS 173 

operations. And wherever interest figures as part of the cement 
and leading, there is the will proportionally prominent and 
efficacious. The adaptation to ends is largely physical in the 
case of instinct ; it is less so in learning by habit, as here the 
success of the conative tendency helps to fix the habit by its, 
effect on organic processes. In perceptual fusion and contiguous 
association, interest, somehow, is an essential condition in es- 
tablishing the habitual linkage ; in association by similars its 
selective agency is still more prominent ; and in ideal construc- 
tion the physical processes become obviously instrumental in 
the realization of a free self-conscious purpose. While in- 
strumental, however, the physical staging of the will remains 
nevertheless important in supporting the freer superstructure. 
Physiological habit and contiguity remain necessary means of 
conserving the selective results of experience for further use, 
however much the will may intersect and select within the 
habitual connections. 

So far as the modes of the will are concerned, these can only 
be known as they unfold themselves in its selective reactions. 
Each instinct reveals a fundamental mode of will — a theme 
which is organized in ever greater complexity through its 
racial and individual development. It becomes the will to 
live, the will to own, the will to enjoy, the will to sympathize, 
the will to know, and so on through its varying and com- 
plex motifs. If the will is dependent upon a physical world 
and its contents for its realization, it is in turn the reaction 
of the will which makes the meaning and value of life possible. 

As an energy the will resembles fundamentally other energies. 
It must be known through its effects in definite situations. It 
is to a large extent practically predictable. Like other energies, 
it possesses inertia. It requires a certain amount of stimulus 
— either a physical shock or an inner rhythm — to arouse it. 
Being roused, a certain energy must be taken away before it 
subsides into rest. It is a definite quantity : a greater emphasis 
in one direction means the withdrawal of interest in other 
directions. Will energy bears definite relations to other 
energies, even though we find difficulty in reducing them to 
exact quantitative measurement. 

In answer to the question : What is mental ? we must say, 



174 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

then, that the will in its various stages of organization is mental, 
and with it is bound up its pure affective tone of agreeable 
or disagreeable. The remainder of what we speak of as in 
the mind we must regard as physical. In order to be known, 
the will must figure as a Uving activity, as part of the context 
which we call subject in the subject-object relation. It includes 
in its apperceptive activity an associative context, but this is 
energized or set, in a unique way, by the dominant tendency. 
Associates, contents, whether physical contents or the will's 
persistent tendencies and results may figure as part either of 
the subject or object, but not the unique activity of the will 
itself. Destroy this, and you destroy mind. This is the real 
core of the ego. It is not an occult substance, but an energy 
which is known through its effects on other energies, and which 
thus knows itself. The situations in which the will discovers 
itself are intersubjective relations where will confronts will 
in the tension of common problems. 

I cannot agree with Stout that conation and feeling are not 
merely known through experience as a tree may be, but are 
themselves experiences.^ While feeling is doubtless bound up 
with certain organic excitements and with consciousness, I 
cannot see that the case of the will differs fundamentally from 
that of the tree so far as experience is concerned, except in so far 
as the will may figure in the attitude of knowing, may be con- 
scious of its own procedure. The tree so far as we can see can 
be only object in the experience relation ; it cannot be subject. 
Neither, however, is created by being experienced. Expe- 
rience is only another name for the unique relation which we call 
interest; and I cannot see why the will is dependent for its 
existence upon noticing itself, or being noticed perhaps by 
another will, any more than the tree is thus dependent. The 
will discovers itself through the same energetic relations as it 
discovers things. It is only as it enters into the interesting 
situations that it becomes aware of its own existence or expe- 
riences itself. And then it discovers itself only piecemeal, as 
it discovers things piecemeal, in different situations. It is 
not conscious of its whole self in one act. It has many proper- 
ties, and these are often contradictory and inhibit each other. 

» Anst. Proc, 1908-1909, p. 244. 



KNOWING MINDS 175 

If it is surprised at the novelty in the situations which it faces 
in the world of objective reality, it is no less surprised at the 
new instincts, tendencies, and meanings which come to light 
within its own constitution. Experience is but a relation into 
which the will enters and where the light of consciousness is 
thrown upon it. 



When we come to the identity of the self, we must hold that 
the self, Hke physical things, is just as constant as we can take 
it — as constant as its activities and contents; as its ability 
to satisfy social expectancies. What is the use of assuming, be- 
side this constancy of the stream of consciousness, an external 
entity to make the process constant? Such an entity is ob- 
viously an afterthought, an hypostasis of the fact of constancy 
itself. It makes the processes neither more nor less constant 
than they actually are in the flow of experience. As the 
organic sensations constitute a constant background in the 
changes of mental life, they play an important part in our 
consciousness of identity. They furnish largely the warmth 
and tone of personality ; and disorganization of these sensations 
produces serious disturbances in our sense of self; yet to fur- 
nish the meaning of identity, there must also be certain con- 
stant tendencies, which furnish the leading or active thread of 
experience in the panoramic and shifting scenes of feelings, 
perceptions, and ideas. 

Kant is quite right that the consciousness of succession is a 
different fact from successive states of consciousness. But it 
does not follow that the consciousness of succession requires 
any transcendental unity outside of the stream of experience. 
The consciousness of succession means that a relatively perma- 
nent system of tendency, in order to realize its will, must 
take account of the coming and going of contents — must 
emphasize the constant as over against the fleeting in order to 
establish definite expectancies. What furnishes the pragmatic 
substance is precisely this core of permanent tendency and 
associations in the midst of the flux. What is the use of dupli- 
cating this identity by assuming another identity to account 
for it and so on ad infinitum f Why not take the constancy of 



176 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

the processes, so far as such constancy must be acknowledged, 
at its face value ? 

Constancy and change are both facts that the will must ac- 
knowledge in the process of experience. There is the relatively 
permanent will, the invariable associations ; and there is, on 
the other hand, the shifting of contents and values, the new 
experiences, the unforeseen obstacles, the pleasant surprises. 
Why not take experience as it is? But this is not human 
nature. Our tendency is to emphasize some aspect of the whole 
and neglect the rest. For instance, you must admit that 
there is constancy in experience. If that is the case, one argues 
there must be absolute constancy. In and through the states, 
there must be an eternal self, a transcendental substance, which 
remains identical in all the states. And the changes themselves 
are merely accidents of this eternal substance or character. 
And, on the other hand, there is change. Our mental facts 
come and go. Very well, then there must be absolute change. 
There can be no constancy if there is change. Each gross 
moment is really divisible into infinitesimal changes. And 
everything must necessarily flow through these infinitesimal 
transitions. There is only appearance of qualities or tenden- 
cies, but really there is this absolute flux. Does the attention 
vary? Then the contents attended to must vary also. Do 
our ideas vary? Then our will attitudes must vary too. 
Such is the manner of reasoning the human mind from age to 
age has employed ; and new editions are appearing all the while. 
But what we must not forget is that the conception of an eternal 
self, on the one hand, or of the calculus of flux, on the other, 
are merely tools with which we work. Their authority in 
the end can never rise above the facts from which we have 
derived them. The contents and tendencies may overlap our 
ideal divisions. All we can say is that in the history of the 
self there is change and growth and novelty, but there is also 
some constancy. Else we would not even be talking about flux. 
There would be no memory or expectancy. We must learn to 
recognize constancy in so far as there is constancy, and flux 
in so far as there is flux. 

Just why there should be such a mystery about the con- 
tinuous occurrence of a relatively stable context, taking ac- 



KNOWING MINDS 177 

count of a series of successive feelings or perceptions, it is 
hard to see. But such has been the feehng of others besides 
Mill: "Accepting the paradox that something which ex 
hypothesi is but a series of feelings can be aware of itself as 
a series. ... I think by far the wisest thing we can do is to 
accept the inexplicable fact, without any theory how it takes 
place ; and when we are obliged to speak of it in terms which 
assume a theory to use them with a reservation as to their 
meaning." ^ Yes, perhaps. But would it not be wiser still 
not to invent such an absurd paradox? The series of feelings 
does not as a series know itself, but is known as such by a 
context of interest which is for the purpose stable. And, 
again, while our ability to control the series of feelings, so as 
to keep them in the focus of attention, may be circumscribed 
by a few seconds, it is not necessary to suppose that the in- 
terest in controlling them is so limited. The dominant tend- 
ency, the ruling passion, may be lifelong. To measure the real 
permanency of the self by the flicker of attention, whether we 
have recourse to the infinitesimal calculus or finite fractions of 
seconds is equally mistaken. The real specious present is just 
as long as the associative interest, determining the series of 
events, whether we attend to such interest or not. The time- 
span of the self and the time-span of attention should not be 
confused. As a matter of fact while attention flickers we can 
bring back again and again the contents and will attitudes. 

The past is not made by the consciousness of it any more 
than the present. You might just as well say that the geo- 
logical strata originate with the consciousness of them. The 
past has its own context and its own content as much as the 
present. The past comes to have significance for the present 
moment, when it is attended to ; but its own meaning does not 
originate then. If it did, there would be no possibility of 
knowing the past, because there would be no past to know. 
The context of the past must somehow persist and be ac- 
knowledged by the present, if we are to have a past. Else 
there could be no memory. Take the simplest case of recog- 
nition, ideal or perceptual. Part of the past content must 
figure as a content in the present context. This content in 

1 J. S. Mill, "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton," 4th ed., 247 ff. 



178 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

definite recognition reinstates its own past setting, be it the 
sensory context of the perceptual object or the ideational 
setting, which is acknowledged by the present context, in- 
cluding the dating. There may, of course, be all degrees of 
reinstatement, and so of vagueness of recognition, but in 
any recognition a past content must figure as the identical 
content in the present context together with its own tendencies. 
In this unraveling of the past context, there is also the more or 
less vague intuition of pastness, due to the growth series of 
which the contents are a part. Sometimes an identical content 
plus this feeling of pastness is all that figures in the present 
context, and we have the confusion of feeling that we have been 
in the same situation before, when we know we cannot have 
been there. 

In purposive realization, we have a similar illustration of 
constancy with reference to the future. If ideals could not 
persist, but were new every moment and in each infinitesimal 
fraction of a moment, there could be no such thing as the 
realization of an end. Experience would be one immediate 
slough without direction. The facts of experience, however, 
show that we can keep a constant nuclear aim, however much 
the context of our meaning may grow in extent and definiteness 
in the process. There remains an identical constellation of 
content through it all. And so ideal realization is possible. 

It is true that we depend very much upon symbols in retaining 
the past and in fixing the present and the future. Knowing our 
own meaning, past and present, as knowing those of others, is 
largely an interpretation of language. But language after all is 
only the symbol of the contents of experience. Language could 
not convey the same meaning, unless we owned the meaning. 
We can recall blue sky when we perceive the words, because we 
have the actual meaning blue sky, however fragmentary its 
concrete content. And failing this, as in an unknown tongue, 
we would simply have words staring us in the face, conveying 
nothing. Language, moreover, is discrete and stereotyped 
and fails to give an equivalent for the quivering transitions 
that persist indefinitely within the systematic meaning. It 
is not fair to substitute the tool, however important, for the 
living reality. 



KNOWING MINDS 179 

But, we shall be told, the real persistence is not of the con- 
tents themselves but of brain-processes. We have elsewhere 
pointed out the absurdity of supposing that our mental con- 
tents are converted into atoms and molecules, when we are 
not attending to them or still more that they should disappear 
into nothingness to be magically recreated. All that the 
brain cells can do is what the phonograph or the camera or 
the written page does for our senses — furnish a record of 
experience. But just as the mind must furnish the real content 
for the written page and the other sense records, so it must 
furnish the content for the brain record. The brain record no 
more makes the content than the words on the page. And if 
the brain record means a constant record it must be because the 
content is recognized as the same. As a matter of fact, owing 
to the uncertainty of the brain record, we substitute largely 
the ink record which is both more reliable and socially more 
available. Whenever, then, we have the meaning of identity 
and not bare physical identity, there must be the identical 
will. Through the process there must run the silver thread of 
persistent tendency. That is the real currency of which the 
records are the symbols. That we are immediately aware 
of the brain record and only through the senses conscious of 
the ink record does not alter a particle the significance of the 
records. When we read the ink records, we do not read the 
retinal fibers or light rays; we interpret them as symbols of 
content, just as much as though they were written on our 
brain by the law of habit. 

The mental energies have their own laws of spreading and 
becoming ineffective as shown by the researches of Ebbing- 
haus. Sometimes our associative contexts become dissociated ; 
and, when they do, no transcendental ego breaches the gap. 
Memory and recognition operate only when there is constancy 
within the referent context. The other contexts, the relata, can 
suggest neither sameness nor novelty, unless there is such 
constancy in the subject. How far the inefficiency is due to 
records can be ascertained by the fact that when an objective 
record is present, visual or oral, the contents are reinstated 
even when the brain record is ineffective. This fails when there 
is real dissociation of the context of meaning. 



180 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

We must, finally, remember that the constancy of the in- 
dividual meaning is determined not merely by the individual 
himself, but by his social context of relations, which reacts 
upon his own consciousness and with reference to which con- 
stancy and flux alike become practically significant. This social 
context of judgment with its records must determine how 
far the individual feeling of identity can be trusted. The 
individual meaning sometimes judges itself to be constant, 
when the social verdict is otherwise. And identity has signifi- 
cance primarily as a social category. 

VI 

The unity of the self is a question distinct from the subject- 
object relation. Whether the self functions as whole or part, 
there is, whenever it is awake, the focal and marginal field, 
the active context, and the selected content. This is true even 
where there is complete dissociation of associative systems. 
Leone II, when awake, has just as much the I-me character 
as Leone I, however distinct they may be as regards associa- 
tions, temperament, and character. To what extent, then, the 
experiences of one organism hang together must be treated as 
a problem by itself. 

The self has as much or as little unity as we must recognize. 
We must take unity precisely as we are accustomed to take 
difference — at its face value. And here again no a priori 
assumptions will either increase or diminish the unity which 
we find in the actual processes. As a matter of fact, a tran- 
scendental ego or soul, or any other additional entity, spiritual 
or material, simply becomes one fact more to be related to 
the rest ; and if we dogmatically deny unity to the facts them- 
selves and treat them as purely unique and disparate, no 
external linkage will serve as cement to bind the hypothetical 
differences together, not even in an infinite series. The 
processes cannot be unified by being "in something" external 
to themselves, material or spiritual. They must possess 
their own linkage. 

The dogma that each state of consciousness is unique and 
indecomposable is as indefensible as that of a transcendental 
knower relating disparate facts. There could be no judg- 



KNOWING MINDS 181 

ments in an experience where the facts are so intimately blended 
that the experience could only be taken as a whole. All our 
thinking depends upon our ability to analyze out identical 
qualities or relations and to pass from one context to another 
on the basis of such abstraction, dealing with the contexts 
only so far as the identical predicate pertains. As a matter of 
fact, actual experience shows that we can take objects and quali- 
ties now in one context, now in another, without altering the 
object by thus subjectively taking it. The content yellow when 
transferred from the marginal to the focal field of attention is 
not altered in quality, whatever may be the difference of moving 
it from the marginal to the focal field of vision. We can know 
the past, we have seen, and we can prepare for the future, be- 
cause we can take the contents and their contexts over again 
without altering their own meaning or reality in so taking them, 
however much their significance for the cognitive contexts may 
be altered. The dogma of the uniqueness of each state of 
consciousness as such contradicts all our procedure and would 
make not only the science of psychology but any science im- 
possible, for all science presupposes the possibility of taking 
facts over again in experience. 

There are doubtless unities in experience which fulfill a unique 
purpose and which as individual unities cannot be exchanged 
for other unities. But why, therefore, give our entire expe- 
rience this character ? And even when a whole has uniqueness, 
it does not follow that the elements cannot be analyzed and 
taken over again indefinitely. Unique as the Angelus is as 
a painting, the elements of color, perspective, and form can be 
analyzed out and can figure in any number of contexts. The 
composition is not unique in its elements, but in the will, which 
they express through their correlation and which furnishes a 
specific satisfaction to the appreciating subject. 

Absolute uniqueness, like the absolute ego, is a dogma un- 
supported by facts. Why make knowledge impossible by 
assumptions? If experience came merely by unique throbs, 
prediction and knowledge would be impossible. If it consisted 
of wholly diverse contents, knowledge would likewise be im- 
possible. But to some .extent we can have prediction, we can 
pass from fact to fact by means of identities in the stream of 



182 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

processes. Let us take as distinct what experience makes dis- 
tinct, and what experience joins together let no man's assump- 
tions put asunder. 

If we insist on abstracting from the processes of experience 
altogether — from its active context and its selected datum — 
in order to discover something which is not process at all 
but which is superadded to the activity of the self, we get 
not a transcendental ego or any other common entity outside 
of the process, we get the fact of consciousness in the abstract 
which accompanies all our apperception. This is not a 
spectator. The spectator of experience must be the apper- 
ceptive context. It is merely the condition of awareness at 
all. It is quite colorless. It is responsible for neither diver- 
sity nor unity. It holds together as Httle as it separates. 
It simply makes the facts apparent. It is not necessary to 
give consciousness an individual existence for each knower 
as is done with Purusha in the Sankyah system. The in- 
dividuality belongs to the processes themselves, in their 
phylogenetic and ontogenetic history. Consciousness taken 
as an abstraction is homogeneous. 

Sometimes we must recognize the self as partial. It may 
be a case of impulsive control where the total context of tend- 
ency fails to express itself. We then speak of ourselves in 
retrospect as not being ourselves. It may be a dissociation 
of memory, which makes us fail to connect with the past 
and so carry out our obligations and satisfy expectations. 
It may be organic disorder which makes one part of the con- 
tents, previously linked with the self-contents, seem foreign 
altogether, with altogether strange properties. It may be a 
case of more profound dissociations, where dirempted systems 
of association, each with its own characteristic tendencies, 
simultaneously or alternately struggle for the mastery. In 
all of these cases the contents thus dissociated may come to 
figure again, after restored equilibrium, in a total context with 
its characteristic consciousness of identity. But, in any case, 
we must accept the actual association or dissociation as it is. 

Even when the facts hang together, they do not hang to- 
gether in the same way. There are different grades of unity. 
This has not always been recognized. Because some facts 



KNOWING MINDS 183 

hang together systematically as parts of a purpose, it has 
been argued that the self is fundamentally a thinking or rational 
self and that all mental activity is implicitly or explicitly of 
the judgment type. The realization of an ideal self, then, 
becomes a case, not of empirically selecting and composing a 
unity in obedience to a purpose, but of becoming conscious of 
an eternal self already constituted and impHcit in our simplest 
mental acts. 

Again, because some facts apparently hang together in our 
attention moment only externally, in space and time, with 
no seeming internal bond, but are simply interlinked by con- 
tiguity within the field of interest, it has been argued that 
habit or contiguity is the only real linkage of our mental 
facts, with similarity given perhaps a more or less vague secon- 
dary place. Or, perhaps, the opposite : since similarity of 
content is sometimes found to be the seeming linkage, contig- 
uity is made a case of similarity, if the two are not simply held 
out as irreducible laws. This external linkage, moreover, has 
generally been credited, not to the side of mental processes, 
but to the account of brain processes. Our ignorance of brain 
dynamics and the paradox of cementing feelings and ideas by 
means of atoms and molecules and their habits has not dis- 
comfited physiological psychology. 

Now here again we must take connections at their face 
value. In part, evidently, the facts of mind hang together 
as members of a system. They cohere and are controlled by 
an identical purpose — utilitarian, logical, aesthetic, ethical, 
or religious. It may be the idea of wealth; it may be the 
pursuit and creation of beauty ; it may be the love for truth ; 
it may be the passion for righteousness; it may be the imi- 
tation of Christ. The ideal self is no doubt the self unified 
within a comprehensive purpose, where all claims are adjusted, 
all facts seen in systematic relation. But for us finites this 
unified self is largely an aim and only in part fact. 

The linkage sometimes is the consciousness of a common 
quaHty or relation by means of which the otherwise seemingly 
heterogeneous facts or contexts hang together. Thus con- 
sciousness of a common quality may bring together processes 
which have never been experienced together and so is quite 



184 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

a distinct and elementary fact. In every case of recognition, 
however rudimentary, this consciousness of the partial identity 
of traits of one individual or context with another is present. 
This, in the case of the judgment of analogy — the building 
of expectancies upon identical traits — forms the transition 
to the reading of facts by internal connections rather than 
by adventitious. That one individual or setting is merely 
Hke another is an adventitious relation. It is when the 
identity links them in a system of prediction; that we have 
science. 

The loosest or most adventitious bond is that of habit, 
the contiguous interest in facts merely happening together 
in space or time. The overlapping part of one context tends 
to reinstate its other context or one of its other contexts in 
accordance with the strength of the habit so established and 
the dominant set at the time. The set of active tendency acts 
like a switch system, making some habits effective and others 
ineffective for the specific purpose. 

Whether the linkage be through a systematic purpose or 
through similars or through habit, in any case the linkage 
is due to the consciousness of identity in the variety of facts 
and contexts. There must be at least the bond of unitary 
interest, whatever may be their own linkage of the facts them- 
selves — the identity of the context which takes account of 
the facts, fleeting and heterogeneous as these facts may be. 
While a great deal of our mental life is held together by such 
contiguous interest, we must not forget that it is precisely in 
the mental world that we can follow the transitions from fact 
to fact and have the immediate consciousness of their string 
of identity, i.e. wherever we have purposive unity. Outside 
of what appears to be mind we must be satisfied to piece out 
the transitions conceptually and inferentially. We cannot 
follow immediately the transitions of the facts. It is a mis- 
take to ignore these internal transitions of the mind and to 
strive, as modern psychology has done, to reduce the relations 
of mind to the adventitious and external kind. Purposive 
unity must be recognized together with passive association 
by similars and by contiguity as an actual type, as well as an 
ultimate ideal, of mental connection. 



KNOWING MINDS 185 

VII 

What becomes of activity and freedom, if we once admit 
that the stream of tendency is the agent? No theory can 
unmake the facts and such activity or freedom as there is 
still remains. It is hard to see of what use a transcendental 
knower or any spiritual something could be in accounting 
for activity or any other function of the self, as it must 
necessarily be the same whether the self is active or passive. 
Activity, as contrasted with passive and non-voluntary 
states, would still have to be stated in terms of the concrete 
processes, though somehow it is hard to rid ourselves of the 
feeling that the idea of an extra entity, added to the facts, 
affords an additional guaranty of identity, unity, and freedom. 

Activity has sometimes been identified with the unpre- 
dictable and novel. The world of psychic reality, it is rightly 
pointed out, is not exhausted in our concepts. It is not all 
included in our present logical context of meaning. One 
characteristic fact about the stream of consciousness is its 
ever novel situations and novel attitudes. You cannot except 
partially predict the future. But however true this may be, 
as stating our finite experience, and however much we may 
recognize the truly temporal aspect of life, it does not seem 
possible to define activity in such terms. For change and 
novelty exist apart from our activity. They confront us 
whether we are active or passive, awake or asleep. They 
may come to thwart our purposes as well as come as the fruits 
of our efforts. I do not see, therefore, how we can define 
activity or freedom in terms of novelty. 

Activity and freedom must mean the realization of an aim. 
And we cannot aim at the unpredictable. We can only wait 
for it and let it happen as it may. Activity on the contrary 
means the control of events — ideas, feelings, perceptions, 
impulses — by an idea which remains constant. It is just this 
conscious leading that we, in our awake moments, mean by 
the self. That the novel and unforeseen happen is incidental 
to the activity and may be forced upon us quite independently 
of our being active ; though a general readiness even here is 
the thing, in turning the novel to our advantage when it comes. 



186 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

Activity means that the consequences follow from our intention, 
not contrary to our intention. 

Activity, therefore, is the very opposite of chance, which 
means the unpredictable and uncontrollable. Fluent our 
world must be to some extent to have expectancy, to look 
to the future; and with the fluency there may be novelty. 
Perhaps there always is. But freedom relates to making 
real the ideal content, to regulating the flow in accordance with 
the dominating purpose. Only when the idea can recognize 
the results as its own fulfillment, however much more definite 
and concrete, do we have freedom. Whether the flow in 
such a case is determined altogether by '* considerations," or 
whether it is to some extent independently variable, does not 
concern the question of freedom, since we are free only in so far 
as the flow is controlled by the purpose, is organized into some 
ideal scheme of hfe. The novelty, as we finites can take ac- 
count of it, is necessarily an afterthought, a gift of the process, 
and by hypothesis it is not anything we can theorize about. 
It is a character of the concrete flow, as contrasted with the 
expectant and guiding idea. Whether it is absolute novelty 
or due to the peculiar limitations of our experience it is dif- 
ficult to know. Some of it is evidently due to the hmitations 
of our finite consciousness, where we often discover that what 
is novel to us as individuals or even as an age is already part 
of the content of historic humanity. The novelty of the 
child, to whom all is novel, is merely its taking over of the 
content of the race, in terms of its own specific organization. 
But while novelty abounds in the infant's Hfe, there is no 
freedom. Conduct is free only when it is a consequence of a 
systematic purpose. We do not call a man free in so far as he 
must say of the outcome of his conduct : ''That is not what I 
meant" or ''I had not thought of that." 

There has been a tendency of late to minimize the impor- 
tance of the focal factor in attention. A new light has been 
thrown upon the complexity of our mental life by such researches 
as those of the Freudian school. More emphasis is being placed 
upon the dimly conscious or even unconscious impulsive back- 
ground than upon the intellectual constellations which occupy 
the foreground of our conscious field. The real motive springs 



KNOWING MINDS 187 

must be sought, it is held, in the deeper impulsive strata, rather 
than in the shuffling of ideas. It is this impulsive background 
which furnishes the real determinants of interest and conduct. 
Sudden crises in our emotional and volitional life have been 
explained by the subconscious incubation of tendencies which 
gather strength, often unbeknown to the habitual stratum 
of consciousness, until, sometimes under some special stress, 
sometimes by their own cumulative energy, they break through 
the crust and establish a new center of emotion and volition.^ 
In such cases, self-surrender, rather than ideational control, 
seems to be the secret of the establishing of a new equilibrium, 
with its characteristic consequences of value and conduct. 
Needless to say, the new level of interest may mean retrogres- 
sion as well as progress, counterconversion rather than conver- 
sion, from the point of view of socially established ideals. In 
either case, the change shows that there are more things in 
heaven and earth than are dreamt of in man^s intellectualistic 
philosophy. Valuable light has been thrown, in many cases, 
upon socially pathological emotions and conduct, as well as 
physical disorders, by psycho-analysis through its unearthing 
of balked dispositions. It is true that the Freudian School 
has placed a one-sided empha,.^lo upon sex dispositions both in 
explaining pathological and normal behavior. Other primitive 
impulses, such as self-seeking, fear, anger, etc., are equally 
original, if not equally pervasive, and must be taken account 
of both in their normal and pathological aspects. The ideal 
tendencies, too, as shown in religious conversion may be the 
balked dispositions. But in any case, the new exploration of 
the subconscious has disclosed the limitations of the intellec- 
tualist psychology of mechanical associationism. 

Without minimizing the importance of the discovery of 
dissociations in the strata of our psychic life, it is true neverthe- 
less that, in the stream of the self as known to most of us, there 
is an interlinking of dispositions in our waking experience. 
The subconscious is here the more which furnishes the basis 
of movement and interest in a one-story structure, more or less 
loosely organized. Here, too, what we are distinctly conscious 
of in the way of snatches of ideas, perceptions, and feelings 

1 See James, "Varieties of Religious Experience," Chapters VIII, IX and X. 



188 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

floats on the larger stream of the subconscious life with its 
associative and impulsive tendencies. But though the con- 
scious part may be only a tenth or hundredth part of the total 
stream, it is nevertheless important in the steering. Work of 
moment does not get done, unless there is the attention to 
plans and ideals. Valuable results come to us from the sub- 
conscious only when there has been a previous set established 
by conscious effort. Most of us are not saved from uselessness 
and chaos by self-surrender, but rather by active attention 
which makes certain tendencies focal and meaningful until 
our Ufe becomes fairly thoroughly organized in terms of such 
ideals. Activity and freedom still continue to mean the 
steering and control of the multitudinous impressions and im- 
pulses by means of purposes, fragmentary though our conscious- 
ness of their implications may be. 

VIII 

Finally, the dynamic theory of the self explains the value 
and worth of conduct in so far as it possesses those characters. 
Any abstract entity added to the processes would as little 
account for the presence as the absence of value in any specific 
process. Value is a function of activity. Objects have value 
when they satisfy some tendency of the self, in its various 
stages of complexity and equilibrium. As every satisfaction 
of the will is a value, we must distinguish between value and 
worth — subjective value and objective value. Whether 
activity has worth or not does not depend upon its individual 
satisfaction, but upon its agreement with a standard which the 
will must acknowledge. It may be the standard of social 
agreement ; and this at any rate is enforced upon the individual 
will, whether accepted by it or not. But as this also is vari- 
able, our finite activity, in order to have worth, must refer 
to a standard which the social will, too, must accept in its 
racial development. The meaning of this we can only catch 
gradually, and every such advance in meaning must come 
from individual insight. 

As the agreement of activity with an objective standard is 
worth, so, if there is an ultimate and eternal standard, agree- 
ment with this standard means immortality. As society 



KNOWING MINDS 189 

conserves the unities which harmonize with its standards, and 
makes the poem, institution, or individual that expresses its 
will immortal, in so far as in it Hes, so, if there is an ultimate 
standard and a wiU to enforce it, this will must intend the 
immortality of that which reaHzes the standard, be the unity 
personal or impersonal. The worthless unities could not, 
in such a world, survive as individual unities, they could only 
survive as contents or tendencies to be used as raw material for 
more comprehensive unities, as the button molder in Ibsen's 
" Peer Gynt " melts up the sham individuals in his ladle. 

Since so much of what enters into our mental processes, 
both in the way of content and in the way of associative mech- 
anism, is physical, it is a question whether such elements and 
contexts can survive the shock of bodily decay. The real 
continuity of mind may have to be thought of purely in terms 
of the will — its continuity as an energetic complex, with its 
stored-up effects and its organized character. This concep- 
tion of continuity is that emphasized by the Buddhist conception 
of Karma. Thus to conserve the moral results would indeed 
make immortality a practical reahty. Ideational memory 
and association may well be looked upon as machinery, exist- 
ing for the time owing to the mind's conjunction with a physical 
body and valuable as instruments in the development of the 
will, in order to make effective its capacities for docility and 
refinement. If we limit memory to " organic memory," 
to the retention of motor results which can guide the future 
process of development, there is no reason why the will should 
not be accorded memory. Such memory must indeed be at- 
tributed to the hereditary stream of cells which condition the 
unfolding of every complex life history. 

We may thus look upon the coarser or finer qualities, native 
to the minds of human beings as we know them, as the result 
of such immortality on the part of the will looking backward, 
though conceived perhaps in racial rather than individual 
terms. To have this greater capacity for truth, for beauty, 
for uprightness, and for friendship would indeed seem an im- 
mortality well worth while. It marks the quality of wills now 
and may so continue forever to mark their quality with ever 
greater possibihties. 



190 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

Of course the persistence of an individual will would mean, 
not merely the persistence of conative tendencies, but the 
persistence of a certain organization, a certain form quality 
of the whole which marks a unique personality, as it marks the 
unique harmony in music. Such organization of character 
shows a remarkable durability in our present life history, and 
does not seem to be dependent upon the changes of the physical 
organism. 

Even in the case of the physical content and its habitual 
associations, it is, of course, possible that these may be so inti- 
mately woven into the character and imity of the will that they 
can exist independently of their particular physical conditions. 
Like a diamond set in gold they may persist inlaid in our in- 
terests. This is more difficult to conceive, though our faith 
here in bare possibilities may be aided by direct results from 
the despised science of psychic research. Nothing indubitable 
would seem to have been arrived at up to date, though some 
distinguished investigators feel otherwise. Further research 
may here, as in other fields, bring greater agreement. 

At any rate such conceptual dissociation of mental energy 
from its temporary physical conditions, will give faith a freer 
play to construct its belief world as may be consistent with our 
hopes and happiness. Where we know so little, it is important 
that our conceptions should not trip up or block some of those 
deeper yearnings of humanity, which certainly have tremendous 
social and race significance, however incapable they may be 
of scientific proof. The craving for immortality remains at 
any rate one of the most stubborn and perennial demands of 
the will. As the will becomes conscious of its reahty and dig- 
nity, it naturally becomes solicitous to shape a conception of 
the world which shall furnish a congenial chmate to its brief 
conscious awakening in the time process. 



CHAPTER XI 
Individual and Social Minds* 

We have spoken so far of mind as though it were made up 
of individual streams, in more or less abstract isolation from 
each other, each bound up with its own organism. We have 
become accustomed, thanks to the sharp abstractions of science, 
to look upon mind as subcranial. We cannot, however, in my 
opinion solve this difficulty of abstract isolation by getting rid 
of mind altogether and by substituting for it organic reactions. 
Mental behavior is not mere physiological behavior ; and add- 
ing the quale of interested organic behavior merely introduces 
the problem of mind through the back door. For we must 
still define interest. This is no mere neutral light as we have 
seen, but an energetic reaction between the will and a stimulus. 
The stimulus may be physico-organic ; it may be internal to the 
will's own rhythm ; but it may also be another will. It is the 
relation in the latter case with which we are concerned here. 

In assuming, as psychologists have done in the past, the 
isolation of minds, the relations between minds have necessarily 
been regarded as external relations. The continuities between 
minds have been assumed to be physical continuities, unless in 
some "spooky" instances of telepathy. We become conscious 
of other minds, it is supposed, only through analogy from physio- 
logical conduct, i.e. we represent to ourselves that other people 
have minds from the similarity of their bodily behavior to our 
own, assuming, of course, that we have knowledge of our 
own minds from the start. By imitating other people's be- 
havior, including in later development their words as well as 
their instinctive sounds and gestures, we learn to translate 
more fully the hidden mind of the other egos into terms of our 

* For a fuller treatment of the social mind, see the author's articles in the 
American Journal of Sociology, 1913, 1914, 1915. 

191 



192 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

own and so to share to some extent a common world. What 
is thus directly shared and common to minds is the physical 
world. With this each of us has immediate continuity. This 
distinction between mental and physical, modern psychology 
has crystallized into the formula that physical facts are those 
which are objects to several observers while mental facts are 
objects to one observer only. The former furnishes, there- 
fore, the world of description, the latter is only accessible to 
private intuition.^ 

Why this precedence should be given to physical continuities 
is not easy to understand from the point of view of logic, though 
natural enough from the point of view of custom. The material 
world has been too much with us. Early and late, through a 
long survival struggle with the sense environment, we have 
been directly dependent upon it for our inomediate wants, 
while conscious cooperation with our fellows and the treatment 
of them as anything more than things — breathing bodies — is 
comparatively late and not over- widespread now. In the 
lowest animals, mind seems entirely enslaved to the organism 
and its needs. Blind impulse and habit seem here indeed a 
part merely of organic behavior. In the higher animals the 
free association of ideas, the division of labor and cooperation 
for common ends help to liberate mind from this instrumental 
relation to the body until in civilized man, with his power of 
abstract thought, the relation is reversed. Body comes to be 
the instrument of mind, and the individual's world of ends 
comes to be found more and more in social companionship, in 
the mutual cooperation and appreciation of his fellows. This 
common bond comes to be looked upon more and more, not as 
a mere artificial contract but as the fufillment of spontaneous 
and fundamental needs. A world of spiritual relationships 
thus arises where the individual lives and moves and has his 
being, and, compared to this, the solid physical world, through 
the progress of science, comes to seem more and more a plastic 
means. 

This mastery, however, is made possible only by means of 
abstract thought ; and abstract thought, indispensable as it 

^ This contrast has been most clearly emphasized by Professor Mllnsterberg 
in his " Grundziige zur Psychologie." 



INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL MINDS 193 

is to this process of liberation, carries its own penalty. It 
tends to make us insensible to the immediate continuities of 
life. It cuts the world up into abstract elements. It atomizes 
its integral situations for descriptive purposes, and then un- 
consciously substitutes the instrument for the concrete inter- 
relations of the real world. Thus conceptual thought, the 
most efficient of social institutions, kills the sense of social con- 
tinuity and reduces mind to a mere abstraction. Its relation 
to its world becomes a mere external relation, at the same time 
that the objective world is itself broken up into abstractions 
and external relations. Incidentally, thought, when thus cut 
loose from those concrete purposes of experience for which it 
is to furnish the leading, makes itself impossible and absurd. 
A world made up of abstractions is no longer conceivable ; and 
so thought in despair comes to discredit itself and to seek solace 
in mysticism. 

It is one of the paradoxes of human development that con- 
ceptual thought, the social instrument by which mind dominates 
matter and secures efficient cooperation of mind with mind, 
should thus in theory have come to isolate mind in the universe, 
if indeed not to make it a mere function of matter. But this is 
not all. Thought has similarly emphasized its abstract sub- 
stantives in our social relations and made us correspondingly 
forgetful of that sense of immediate companionship of mind 
with mind which furnishes the propelling motive of social 
cooperation, including abstract thought. Not that thought 
has destroyed the sense of companionship. Constructive 
imagination does not make men selfish, as some suppose. By 
liberating mind from the immediate sense world, it has vastly 
enhanced both the need and the reality of spiritual association. 
It has made possible the relationship of friendship, the freest 
and most precious of social communions where man rises 
above, not merely the slavery to animal want, but traditional 
bondage as well, and where soul meets soul on the basis of 
lasting ideal kinship. There are compensations. But the 
atomism of our thinking is both effect and cause in the realm of 
practice. While originally the effect of the narrowness of our 
human interests, it in. turn crystallizes and tends to justify 
and perpetuate our social atomism. This defect can be cured 



194 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

only by a deeper thoughtfulness, when thought recognizes its 
instrumental character and examines its deeper, though often 
unconscious, motives. 

Perhaps Bergson is right that the higher insects with their 
concrete intuitive life and their lack of abstract thought are 
more keenly conscious of the real continuities than we are. 
But at any rate they don't know it if they are, while we can 
with an effort at least call back thought to its original task of 
making clear and distinct our concrete intuitions. 

We thus, in the process of experience, literally differentiate 
ourselves out of a social continuum. In this process of differ- 
entiation, in this growing recognition of each other's reality, the 
combative instincts play the most important role. We are 
no sooner brought together by the irresistible pull of gregarious- 
ness than we like children fight to possess the same things; 
perhaps we fight for physical things, perhaps for the mastery 
of the social situation, perhaps to emulate each other in a self- 
imposed task. And in the fight we discover the mutual reality 
of wills and our relative place in the scale of valuation. The 
sense of companionship in the meantime which pulls us to- 
gether and holds us together in spite of the conflict, and even 
makes us enjoy the conflict, is in the background of conscious- 
ness and is apt to be overlooked by the intellectual attention. 
It may seem as though we were together just to fight, to be an 
interference and torment to each other. We fail to realize that 
war itself however destructive, and however clumsy and primi- 
tive as a method of social evaluation, is a social process which 
"makes some gods, some men." 

To sum up our brief genetic retrospect, we may say that while 
to start with, both in race history and individual history, the 
particular will is a rather blind function of an individual organ- 
ism, in the growing civilized life of which we are a part the 
particular mind becomes rather a function of a social organ- 
ization of mind with its necessary division of labor and free or 
compulsory cooperation. In this spiritual economy of the 
world we are literally members one of another. 

If we succeed in recovering to some extent the innocence of 
that immediate experience from which all our abstractions are 
made, we shall find, I think, that the isolation of mind from 



INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL MINDS 195 

mind is based in scientific prejudice, not in the intuited facts. 
The processes of external representation and analogical infer- 
ence presuppose immediate social acquaintance, valuable though 
they are in our attempts to know about other minds. We do 
not start with a knowledge of our own minds and then eject 
it into other bodies, but we become conscious of being minds 
through our interaction with other minds. It is in meeting 
the other will, which thwarts and baffles it, that our own will 
awakes to its reahty and claims. Except for this social inter- 
action, it would remain submerged in the physical continuities, 
a mere function of organic conduct as we find it to be in the 
non-social animals. Our knowledge of social continuities 
starts, like all knowledge of reality, with certain intuited facts. 
The intersubjective continuities are first of all felt, and they 
are felt to be different from physical continuities. This fact 
is more elementary than the representation or inference of other 
minds; and is presupposed by these intellectual processes. 
It is because we feel the continuities with other minds and 
must adjust ourselves to them that we try to know about them. 
Our intuition of social continuities is as immediate and elemen- 
tary a fact as that of physical continuities ; and from the point 
of view of knowledge, it is the demands of the social interactions 
which lead us to distinguish between intersubjective and physical 
continuities. We could not, therefore, very well infer the 
former from the latter. The mind, whether conscious or not, 
exists always in certain dynamic contexts or energetic fields; 
but, so far as we know, it requires the unique tension of an in- 
tersubjective field, a conflict with another mind, to raise it to 
consciousness of itself. 

The agnostic is at any rate consistently wrong. He does not 
hold that we have a true intuition of physical continuities, but 
are isolated as minds. He regards both continuities as sub- 
jective states. We thus live in a sort of middle world of phan- 
tasms, — a world neither mind nor body nor a copy of either, 
but a misrepresentation of both. Hence we can know no real 
things, we can trust no intuitions as regards either world. 
The pragmatic point of view, on the other hand, insists that we 
must start with our immediate intuitions and beHefs and try 
to make them consistent and clear. And one of those intuitions, 



196 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

is that of the first-hand and immediate character of social 
companionship. This for the mind, unspoiled by artificial 
abstraction, is as categoricall}^ convincing a fact as are the 
immediate sense continuities with the physical world. 

What is there to set over against this convincing intuition 
of social continuities ? There is an abstract body of secondary 
beliefs due to scientific theory. We still insist on applying the 
molecular conception of interaction to the relation of mind to 
body. To the old type interactionist, it means that mind 
somehow must be located within the brain and give a push to 
its molecules. To the parallelist such interaction is incon- 
ceivable and absurd, and the only relation possible is that of 
inert concomitance and miraculous correspondence, while the 
materialist caps the climax by ruling out mind altogether ex- 
cept as the bare abstraction of a neutral consciousness. 

The mechanical theory has long presented similar difficulty 
as to physical interaction. This difficulty led Leibniz to deny 
any interaction between monads. It led physical science to 
discard the so-called secondary quaUties because in their case 
the characteristic action of the physical stimuli was supposed 
to stop with the end-organs. Just how the primary qualities 
got past was not explained, but merely taken for granted; 
and the agnostics and subjectivists who were more consistent 
had no trouble in insulating mind from any outer physical world. 
Such was the logic of the old mechanical hypothesis. 

Fortunately, we have come to know a type of energy which 
is not ponderable matter. The immaterial character of electric- 
ity was long obscured by our carrying over our mechanical 
models into the new field. The ether was invented with all 
sorts of contradictory properties to furnish a medium for this 
new energy. But whatever may be our belief as regards the 
existence of the ether, we have at any rate come to recognize 
that in electrical energy in its various forms we have a unique 
type of immaterial continuity which intersects and pervades the 
gross material framework in all sorts of ways. What is opaque 
to one wave length becomes translucent to another — to 
X-rays or violet rays. However difficult it is to accustom our 
minds to the properties of this immaterial energy, we have here 
a type of continuity of far greater subtlety than any known be- 



INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL MINDS 197 

fore, a type where molecular models cease to be applicable. As 
the discovery of free electricity has liberated the conception 
of this energy from matter, it is to be hoped that the conception 
of mind may also be liberated from the hypothetical models 
which have made our immediate convictions as to the con- 
tinuities of mind with the physical world and with other minds 
absurd. 

As electrical energy rides on material energy and is thus 
focalized in definite directions, while yet establishing its own 
terminal continuities, so we may conceive that mental energy 
rides on electrical energy and yet establishes its own immediately 
intuited continuities. Within our own body the mental energy 
seems to travel on the electrical energy of the nervous system. 
And why not on the electromagnetic field with which our 
nervous system is continuous? When we send a voice over 
an electric wire, don't we also send the mental impulse which 
gives character and persuasiveness to that voice and makes a 
will at the other end respond to it in a definite way? Are we 
certain that the will to send the voice stays in the brain ? That 
we believe so is due, I believe, to an artificial tradition. 

I do not care to go on indefinitely and work out possible 
analogies between mental energy and electrical. They will 
easily suggest themselves and may easily be overworked. We 
have no more right to transfer the electrical conceptions bodily 
to the mental realm than we have to transfer the material con- 
ceptions to the electrical realm. What I wish to emphasize 
is that the conception of electrical fields of energy and their 
immaterial continuities across space, intersecting our gross 
material world, seems to furnish a model which fits in with our 
unconquerable conviction in the immediate companionship of 
mind with mind. Let us substitute for the old conception of 
the soul as an indivisible, localized atom, the conception of a 
field of energy with its vague penumbral edges or spreadings 
and its more or less focalized and shifting center of activity, 
and we shall have no intellectual obstacle to dealing with our 
social intuitions. 

Such a conception conveys no new information. This must 
be gotten from experience as before and always. It does not 
support a telepathic hypothesis except as social experience in- 



198 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

dicates such an hypothesis. Our social continuities become 
no less mediated by a nervous system, end-organs and an inter- 
vening physical world, whatever its constitution may be, than 
before. It simply insists that mental energy rides across and 
over these other energies and establishes real overlappings, true 
continuities in its own right and kind. Whether more direct 
and free continuities across intervening space than those so 
mediated are possible under conditions of high intensity and 
the special receptivity of the polar fields must be established 
by evidence; but if so established no intellectual model need 
discredit it, and we may admit that there is being accumulated 
a number of uncanny instances that may point to a telepathy 
of this more special kind. 

When once we abandon the dogma of the insulation of mind 
somewhere in the skull, there are many interesting phenomena 
about human relations that may throw light on the activity 
of this mental energy. Just exactly what is it that makes people 
attractive or repellent to each other and sometimes the opposite 
to different people and to the same people at different times? 
What is it that constitutes the ''atmosphere'^ of some person- 
alities and the absence of it in others or that gives soriie a 
positive, others a negative " atmosphere" ? What is that makes 
some psychically warm, others cold, and others colorless ? Why 
do some people move us and others not, though the latter may 
have the better argument and the better cause? What takes 
place when we find a person animated in conversation ? What 
happens when a person is radiant with joy and makes us feel 
his good cheer? What is the dynamics of contagion, be it of 
fear or courage? These are just a few of the questions of 
everyday social life which we shall be able to understand better 
when we are ready to accept the intuition of immediate expe- 
rience that the will is an energy which radiates beyond any 
definite center ; that when we meet in sympathy two fields of 
will actually blend ; and vice versa that they repel each other 
when we are antagonistic. Thus love and hate become real 
first-hand interactions of wills of which the corresponding 
emotions are the reflex effects. 

Language, gestures, and other sense symbols are merely the 
code for controlling the intellectual associations and thus making 



INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL MINDS 199 

definite the meaning of mental continuities. They do not con- 
stitute the continuities. Common moods and common atti- 
tudes are possible without such symbols, but without them 
we cannot be sure of the similarity of the associative trains of 
ideas and images that go with the attitudes. As these are 
bound up with the brain, the direct communication of them 
becomes more difficult. Music succeeds in producing common 
emotions and attitudes, but the intellectual associations vary 
greatly with different listeners. It is the former that furnish 
the directly intuited character of intersubjective continuities. 
It is reported that Carlyle and Tennyson would often visit to- 
gether for a long time without either saying a word. Then 
Carlyle would get up and take his hat and say: ''That was a 
good visit, Alfred." Silent communion of soul with soul may 
give us the strongest sense of companionship. 

We have seen that we must recognize two types of con- 
tinuity, material and immaterial. These two types may 
occupy the same space, the immaterial intersecting, riding over 
and bridging the material in various ways. In a scientific 
way we have come to know one type of immaterial continuity 
with great definiteness, that of electricity. The other type of 
immaterial continuity, viz. the mental type of intersubjective 
communion, human beings have been acquainted with and 
convinced of since the beginning of social relations, but our 
knowledge of it is fragmentary. This is probably in part due 
to our scientific prejudice. In no case of spatial continuity 
can we follow it point for point. We must piece out our per- 
cepts by means of our concepts in any knowledge of continuity. 
But we make our concepts in any case to describe the intuited 
results. If we can understand these results only by assuming 
energetic continuity, i.e. if somehow two energies must con- 
tribute directly to the result, then we have a right to believe 
that the continuity exists. 

In a physical compound such as H2O we know that there 
must be action of the chemical energies upon each other, be- 
cause the result is not the mere external addition of the prop- 
erties of the two elements as we know them in other contexts. 
The compound, water, is. a new individual with distinct prop- 
erties of its own. The relations are in part at least internal 



200 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

relations, affecting the nature of each element contributing. 
What is true in the physical compound is true in the social 
compound. The will of the group, swayed by a common mo- 
tive and common emotion, is not an external addition of the 
traits of the particular individuals, as taken either in psycho- 
logical isolation or in other social compounds. The specific 
group mind has properties of its own which involve fusion of the 
various individuals into a new result. The various individuals 
feel a different degree of convincingness, of power, of sugges- 
tibility as regards the dominant impulse for being a part of the 
social situation. A new energetic field has been established, 
a new individual has arisen with distinct characteristics. There 
is somehow a real overlapping — an immediate inhibition or 
reenforcement of wills, peculiar to the unique social situation. 
The relation here as in chemical compounds affects the natures 
of the terms and is not merely an external relation between 
abstract entities. If we must thus take the result, then the 
continuity must be a real continuity. Will must somehow act 
upon will within a common energetic field to produce this 
individual unity. 

It is, moreover, through the variety of such situations or 
compounds that the self comes to know its own characteristics. 
No man liveth unto himself ; we live only in situations. And 
the most important situations for knowing ourselves are these 
common reactions, when we feel each other's tension, conflict, 
and sympathy. The ego, therefore, when conceived apart 
from such social situations is largely an abstraction. We 
exist in clusters or common fields of energy whose mutual 
attraction or repulsion we feel, rather than as abstract indi- 
viduals. The particular self is a later abstraction made pos- 
sible largely because of the variety and complexity of social 
situations into which civilized man enters as compared with 
tribal man. This, with his abstract name, enables himself 
and others to dissociate him from particular contexts and to 
regard him as an independent personality. But even this 
abstraction is a social function and is rather a discrimination 
of certain constant traits within a variety of situations than an 
independent existence which would mean nothing. 

Not only is the social field of mind intuited as having its own 



INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL MINDS 201 

unique traits as an individual, but it must be so dealt with in 
our practical relations. It commands our loyalty or antago- 
nism as an individual. This is very different from the loyalty 
or the antagonism which we show toward particular com- 
ponents. It may even be the direct opposite. We may love 
the particular person and yet hate his nation or vice versa. 
This loyalty or antagonism to the group is not an attitude to 
a mere collection of particular persons, but a soHdarity or unity 
that includes them and in a measure makes them what they 
are. In savage life where persons are not abstracted from the 
group, no difference is made in the treatment of the isolated 
person and the group. The rehgious command to the ancient 
Hebrews was to exterminate indiscriminately the members of 
another nation. The members were not conceived as having 
potential relations as possible members of the conquering group. 
The more common custom, however, among primitive nations 
was to preserve the conquered as slaves of the conquerors. 
This, however, was a merely instrumental and external relation. 
In the case of the subordinate unity, the family, the individual 
member was not, any more than in the nation, conceived as a 
potential member of other famihes. Even after marriage he 
remained a part of the family of the patriarch and subordinate 
to it. It is in the complexity of the potential relationships 
of civiHzed life that the individual comes to stand out as having 
a dignity and independence apart from any one complex. 

In studying the nature of the social mind, we must proceed 
empirically as we do in the case of the particular mind. In 
the case of the social mind as in the case of the particular mind, 
we can study the subject-object relation, the unity, the iden- 
tity, the worth, and the immortality of the individual con- 
cerned. As regards the subject-object relation, there is in the 
case of the social mind, the dominant, selective will, and there 
is the object aimed at. While there is a many-headed focus 
of the social consciousness, the real subject which evaluates 
and decides is not the particular individual, but the field of 
common tendency and emotion. It is the group will which de- 
cides through the particular person. This will selects differ- 
ently — emphasizes different values, has different inhibitions, 
and releases, from the individual will. It may select to sacri- 



202 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

fice, when the individual would conserve; it may even disre- 
gard the individual's claims altogether. The individual can 
say : I hve, yet not I but the common will which hveth in me. 

The leader is no exception to this. He is the function of 
the group, swayed by its common interest and in turn swaying 
it by his affirmation. The leader and the led are part of the 
same social situation — victims of the same illusions, subject 
to the same exaggerations, fascinated by the same ideals. Only 
because the leader and the led are controlled by the same values 
can the relation exist. There could have been no Napoleonic 
age of sacrifice and devastation if the people had not shared 
with their leader the false dreams of military glory and of bloody 
conquest. They were ahke victims of the illusions of the age. 
The leader may grasp the situation more clearly than the 
rest ; he may divine what the others want ; but in the end he 
only leads because he symbolizes the ambition and ideals of the 
led. 

In this social situation, the intellect plays its due role as it 
does in individual life. The object aimed at calls up the ap- 
propriate associations or means for its realization; and the 
movements and ideas spread from one to another by imitation 
— all in obedience to the internal contagion and the dominance 
of a common impulse. Here, as in the economy of the individual 
consciousness, the intellectual factor rises or sinks in prominence 
with the complexity and novelty of the task to be performed. 
In the chance crowd and the mob, habit and spontaneous 
association are sufficient to satisfy the simple impulse. In 
difficult situations deUberative judgment may be called for to 
adapt means to ends. But in either case it is the group will 
which is the subject controlling the train of ideas, the operations 
of the various brains involved. It is a common mind tapping 
the resources of the individual centers involved. 

In the group mind, too, there is the consciousness of identity 
from moment to moment — the persistence of the impulse or 
ideal to be realized. This, as in the case of the mob, may be 
a mere momentary impulse, due to the predominance of a 
certain primitive instinct for the time being, such as fear or 
anger. But it may also be a more complex and permanent 
tendency involving ideal organization. The will of a nation 



INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL MINDS 203 

may persist generation after generation while individuals come 
and go. Through the internal changes and external vicissi- 
tudes of ages, there is still something distinct and characteristic 
about British mind as contrasted with French. It is a mistake 
to identify the social mind with the mob merely and its evanes- 
cent existence. Its identity must be judged, as we judge in- 
dividual identity, by the common drift of tendencies, by the 
persistent traits, which overlap the various moments of its 
existence. This is never abstract identity, any more than it 
is in the case of the particular self, but the persistence of a 
direction of will within an ever-changing historic process. 

As regards the type of unity which dominates social minds 
here again we find the same variety as in particular minds. 
The imity may be largely external — the imitation and venera- 
tion of common customs and traditions — or it may be a thor- 
oughgoing unity of common ethical ideals and the recognition 
of common claims and responsibihties. Only in the highest 
stages of development is the latter type of unity dominant. 
With the group mind, as with the particular mind, it is only 
through some great crisis that it discovers what it really means, 
that its dominant tendency rises to a conscious purpose, and 
that conscious loyalty to such an ideal becomes a guiding emo- 
tion in its conduct. In the absence of such crises, the ideal is 
impHcit and hf e becomes routine, guided largely by the external 
associations of custom. 

As regards the worth of social minds, this, as in the case of 
particular minds, must be determined by the dominant ideal. 
Does its leading furnish the largest harmony and reahzation 
of the particular factors involved? Does it produce proper 
control of the primitive by the ideal and yet give the primitive 
its due? Does it play the whole scale of values possible to 
human nature? Does it fiu-nish the fullest possibility of de- 
velopment for the future? Then it has realized the maximum 
of worth. If, on the other hand, the common direction of ten- 
dency is produced merely by the intersection of a certain level 
of human nature to the inhibition and neglect of others, more 
particularly if this level be that of the primitive tendencies 
of impulsive satisfaction, then the social mind, as the particular, 
becomes immoral. 



204 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

Finally, as regards the immortality of social minds,i they 
will survive as individuals will survive, if they have intrinsic 
worth as recognized by the growing process of history. Here 
as a matter of fact the immortality of the individual and that 
of his group are inseparable. The immortality of the Greek 
mind will survive while the minds of Homer and Plato survive. 
In them lives the genius of the Greeks, even as they live in 
its atmosphere and give articulate meaning to its tendencies. 
The merest fragment of a Greek artist is alive with the Greek 
mind. Neither individual nor social will depends upon physio- 
logical vehicles, once it has created for itself a spiritual body of 
art, science, and institutions. In these lives the real will, the 
real purpose of a people. Connect with this spiritual field of 
energy, and you feel the influx of its blood with new capacities 
for growth and appreciation. Whenever history has connected 
vitally with the Greek mind or Hebrew mind, it has meant a 
new epoch of life and inspiration — a new impulse towards 
science and art or a new heightening of the moral level of the 
times. And minds which can thus energize and transform man- 
kind are not dead, though for a time they may be disconnected 
from history. In the unified self of human development they 
continue their full significance and life. And if there is an 
overarching spiritual communion, greater than humanity, en- 
veloping and conserving spiritual values, these social minds, 
we may believe, have a unique individual immortality within 
it proportionate to their permanent significance. 

1 For a fuller discussion, see the author's article, "Social Immortality/ 2 
International Journal of Ethics, 1916. 



PART III 
SPACE AND REALITY 



CHAPTER XII 

Psychological and Geometric Space 

There are two aspects to the space concept. These have 
not been sufficiently differentiated in the past, viz. the series 
character of the concept on the one hand, and the void on the 
other. The confusion of these two aspects of the space con- 
cept led to the classic controversy between Newton and Leibniz. 
Newton emphasized the reality of pure space. Leibniz em- 
phasized the geometric or relational aspect. According to the 
former, ''space has an existence, in some sense whatever it may 
be, independent of the bodies which it contains. The bodies 
occupy space, and it is not intrinsically unmeaning to say that 
this definite body occupies this definite part of space, and not 
that part of space, without reference to other bodies occupying 
space. According to the relational theory of space, of which 
the chief exponent was Leibniz, space is nothing but a certain 
assemblage of the relations between the various particular bodies 
in space. The idea of space with no bodies in it is absurd." ^ 
In the history of thought, the aspect of the void was the first to 
be developed. The interest in things preceded the interest in 
thought. Moreover, this aspect is involved in our practical 
adjustments. It is implied in the concepts of motion and 
interaction. It is presupposed in the answer of the atomists 
to Parmenides and Melissos. Parmenides argued that non- 
being is unthinkable, therefore, there can be no void and no 
motion. The atomists argued, on the other hand, that there 
is motion, therefore the void must be real ; and hence assumed 
atoms and the void as their two ultimate principles. In Em- 
pedocles and his followers, the theory of pores as conditioning 

1 Article, "Geometry (VII)," by Whitehead in the 11th ed., Encyclopaedia 
Britannica. 

207 



208 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

the interaction of things, both upon each other and upon our 
sense organs, might have opened up the problem of the relativity 
of knowledge, had the impUcations been seen. 

The other aspect of the space concept, that of series, could 
come into prominence only as the Copernican change took 
place from the interest in things to the interest in those mental 
processes and laws that condition their appearance for us. In 
so far as the serial idea is present in ancient times, as among the 
Pythagoreans, it is ontological ; and against this conception of 
space and time, Zeno had no difficulty in showing that con- 
tinuity and motion are impossible. What he failed to see is 
that our points and fractional divisions are but ideal tools in 
the service of our will in predicting and controlling the ener- 
getic pulses of the world with which we must deal. These are 
not infinitely divisible, but only pragmatically so. With 
Aristotle, the concept of a figured space is upheld as against 
the void, but the boundary of one body with reference to an- 
other is still an ontological boundary. Since Kant, it has been 
generally agreed that the space concept is adequately expressed 
in serial terms ; and hence the ideality of space logically follows. 
That the ghost of the void, so long laid, should rise again must 
make the hair of the boldest Kantian fairly stand on end. But 
the thesis I wish to maintain in this paper is the ideaUty, in- 
deed, of serial space, but the reality of space as pure space, or 
the space of physics and astronomy. In this chapter, I wish 
to make some comments about psychological and geometric 
space. In the next, I shall proceed to the proofs for ontological 
space. 

Psychological Space 

First, a word as regards the presuppositions of our perceptual 
space, or the a priori character of the space intuition. It was 
this particularly that attracted the attention of Kant ; and 
this priority to experience furnishes his most important proof 
for the ideality of space. Kant's arguments for the a priori 
character of the space intuition are, briefly : first, that in 
order to represent things outside myself, or "as side by side, 
that is, not only as different, but in different places, the repre- 
sentation (Vorstellung) of space must already be there"; 



PSYCHOLOGICAL AND GEOMETRIC SPACE 209 

secondly, that ''it is impossible to imagine that there should 
be no space, though one might very well imagine that there 
might be space without objects to fill it"; thirdly ,' that'' on 
this necessity of an a priori representation of space rests the 
apodictic certainty of all geometrical principles, and the pos- 
sibility of their construction a priori.^' ^ Space, in other words, 
cannot be a generalization from empirical data ; for in that case 
we could make only empirical judgments about it. That we 
can make necessary judgments about straight Hnes, the proper- 
ties of triangles, the unity and infinity of space is due to its a 
priori character. 

Now, as regards the first of these arguments, it is, of course, 
true that externality is an immediate fact. We do not start 
with experience as internal, and then project it into an external 
world, whether of things or selves. The "intuition" of ex- 
ternality is, first of all, an organic affair, due to the evolutionary 
adaptation of the organism to its world. It is not dependent 
on consciousness. The purely reflex centers react to specific 
external stimuli; and so, for that matter, do inorganic struc- 
tures. The magnetic needle takes account of the presence of 
the loadstone as an external fact, varying with distance. These 
are primal reactions which antedate and condition conscious 
experience. They are subjective only to a false metaphysics. 
As regards the second argument, physical things must, of course, 
be conceived as in space; we cannot, in our physical experi- 
ments, either conceptually or actually get rid of space ; but we 
can abstract from things by creating a vacuum and observe 
what happens. This does not hold in the world of our logical 
abstractions. Logical entities and relations do not have to 
occupy space; and in our logical manipulations we can, of 
course, abstract from space, and take the properties of things 
out of spatial relations. But this is no argument against Kant, 
for he expressly limited the relevance of space to the world of 
sense perception. In his third argument, Kant changes his 
point of departure from physics to geometry. The space which 
physics deals with does have empirical properties which cannot 
be predicated a priori, though our nervous system has long 

1 The quotations are from "The Critique of Pure Reason," section A of 
the Transcendental -Esthetic, Max MuUer's translation. 



210 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

been adjusted to them in the survival struggle of the race, and 
so they are to a certain extent presupposed in our perceptions 
and reactions. They do not, however, have apodictic cer- 
tainty. The properties of geometric space do, because while 
they are abstractions from our empirical world, they are de- 
termined by the system of postulates which we choose for the 
special type of geometry. Certainly the axioms of Euchdean 
geometry are not innate in the sense that the baby possesses 
them. They are rather logical hmits and presuppose reflective 
thought with its laws, unless we regard everything as innate 
that we have learned before we are twelve years old, to use a 
jibe of Schopenhauer's. They had, indeed, become so in- 
grained in the social tradition of thought at Kant's time that 
he could not conceive the contrary. For us, however, they are 
only one type, though a convenient type, of geometric postu- 
lates. They certainly are not forms of naive perception. 

It is true, however, that certain presuppositions are implied, 
from the point of view of our later reflective consciousness, 
in our biological and perceptual adjustments. The most general 
of these are the law of externality and the law of fusion. One 
is as important as the other for the building up of our world of 
sense perceptions. We must be so constituted as to locate 
some impressions within each other's space, and others in 
different spaces, in accordance with the economy of attention 
and the demands of conduct. The former is as important as 
the latter. We must have unity of things as well as externality 
of things. If we did not have the innate law of externahty, 
we should not spread things out. If we did not possess the 
innate law of fusion, we should have no things to spread out. 
If interpenetration were not a law of our perceptual world as 
well as externality ; if, on the contrary, it were the law of space 
that all impressions must be spread out as external to each 
other, we should not be able to learn from experience; we 
could never know a physical world. It is as a result of the de- 
mands of the environment that the organism has been forced 
to locate certain impressions, which it can attend to at the same 
time conveniently and which recur together, in each other's 
space — the prospective taste value of food in the space of cer- 
tain tactual, olfactory and visual sensations. It has been 



PSYCHOLOGICAL AND GEOMETRIC SPACE 211 

forced also to orient itself with reference to stimuli, external 
to each other — favorable or noxious — as spread out in differ- 
ent directions and at different distances in its environment. 

And now a word about the content of psychological space. 
Since Lotze, a great deal has been made of local signs ; and the 
psychologist's imagination has shown no end of ingenuity in 
constructing space maps. In textbooks of psychology, a 
great deal of space has been devoted to how a space might 
have grown up. However ingenious these attempts may be, 
and however important pedagogically in robbing psychology 
of its " soft " character, it is becoming clear that these con- 
structions are largely artificial — due to a certain psychological 
tradition, rather than an account of the actual genesis of our 
space coordinations. I, for one, cannot discover in normal ac- 
tivity any such map, either tactual or visual. I can, to be 
sure, by a voluntary effort, construct in imagination such a 
picture or map of my body and then localize with reference 
to it ; and I can see how the compulsory construction of such 
a map, in order to understand the so-called psychology of 
space, especially with sufficient faith in authority, might make 
such a map a permanent part of our mental furniture. But 
as an account of genesis, it is gross mythology, which lacks even 
picturesqueness. 

The ingenious explanation, by some psychologists, that the 
absence of any such psychological furniture in our actual 
consciousness is due to the law of economy, is of course equally 
a priori. It certainly must still be shown that anybody nor- 
mally develops such a map, whether tactual or visual. At any 
rate, when we are in a position to introspect, it does not exist. 
I cannot discover even a word image except as it is artificially 
produced or called forth as a result of expectancy. When I 
catch myself in the act, I do not find anything of the kind. 
If you say that I have had this content, but that it has dis- 
appeared, that, at least, ought to be proved. The recollection 
from a previous existence, and almost any other psychological 
theory of genesis might be proved in the same way. 

Our theories of space must be rewritten largely in biological 
terms. The coordinations of the reactions of the human in- 
fant, as in the animal, are primarily a physiological matter. 



212 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

with the difference that while in the chicken, for example, the 
coordinations develop largely in response to intra-organic 
stimuli before birth, in a human being extra-organic stimuli 
play a much greater role. But the coordinations, in either 
case, such as defensive movements, grasping, sucking, the 
coordinations of the various sense-organs with each other, 
walking, etc., are primarily organic adaptations. How far 
trial and habit enter in to make definite such organic adjust- 
ments must be ascertained by scientific observation. "In the 
human infant, walking seems, from such observations as have 
been collected, to occur at the proper age without training or 
unsuccessful efforts." ^ The cerebellum is the great coor- 
dinating center of muscular movements. It is "fundamentally 
an expansion of the local center of the vestibular branch of the 
eighth nerve." ^ Whether the semicircular canals furnish any 
sensations or not, their prime function is evidently to furnish 
stimuli to the cerebellum which has both a tonic function, and 
the function of being an organ of equilibrium. "The cerebellum 
is an organ where are gathered together sensory impulses 
from all the muscles of the body. In this way, the cerebellum 
receives information, as it were, regarding the condition of every 
muscle ; in it is formed a sort of representation or reproduction 
— though so far as known, not attended with consciousness — 
of the dynamic condition of the entire musculature. To this 
is added the very important function provided for by the re- 
ceptors of the inner ear, which responds to the positions and 
movements of the head in space. Thus the postures, move- 
ments, muscular tensions, and external strains exerted on the 
body at every movement, act on the cerebellum, and through 
it reflexly on the muscles." ^ In regard to the differential 
quality in our response to position, "the most that can be said 
is that perception of position is due to some peculiar quality or 
motor connection that each point on the skin or retina pos- 
sesses." ^ But this quahty, so far as the skin is concerned, is 
not apparent to introspection, and as regards the retina, would 
appear to be largely speculative. If such a differential cannot 

• "Elements of Physiological Psychology," Ladd and Woodworth, p. 157. 
2 Ibid., p. 156. 3 ifyid., p. 156. 

*Pillsbury's "Essentials of Psychology," pp. 163-164. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL AND GEOMETRIC SPACE 213 

be discriminated by the expert psychologist, how can we ex- 
pect the untrained man, who is not even looking for it, to judge 
on the basis of it? Evidently, the nervous system, whether it 
is the cerebellum or cerebrum, or some other center that is 
concerned, has a discrimination far keener than our conscious- 
ness. It seems clear that we must assume organic perception 
and organic memory to account for such adjustments. So far 
as correlating these differentials into definite directions and 
distances, all that we know about it is that it is due to move- 
ment. Through a trial and habit process, in which conscious- 
ness may not be present, and when present may be merely 
a spectator, or at most a cue for certain reactions, the parts 
of the organism become more definitely adjusted to each other, 
and to the external perspectives. One thing is certain, when 
we are in a position to introspect, the principal coordinations 
to our space world are a motor affair.^ 

A striking argument against the intellectualistic theories of 
space perception has been furnished recently through some 
researches by Francis B. Sumner .2 It was found that the flat- 
fish, without any possibility of comparison, copies on its back 
the hue and (within certain limits) the geometric pattern of 
the bottom upon which it is placed. This is done through the 
flatfish's eyes. It is a trial and error process where practice 
greatly shortens the process. It is a selective adaptation which 
takes account of only part of the visual field; and since the 
comparison of patterns is by the spectator, and not by the 
flatfish, it does not seem necessary to assume consciousness. 
While one must be careful about carrying the analogy whole- 
sale into human space perception, we may well suppose that 
the fundamental space categories are the result of the direct 
action of the environment without consciousness being neces- 
sarily involved. Our intuition of three dimensional space is 
doubtless due to the stimuli to which the organism must respond. 
The innateness of the straight line may, in the first instance, be 
due to the fact that light travels in straight lines, though 

1 Delabarre has shown the importance of eye movements in our taking ac- 
count of direction. But it is not clear that either the stimuli or the taking 
account are conscious processes. 

2 Journal of Experimental Zoology, 10, No. 4. For an excellent summary 
see W. B. Pitkin in "The New Realism," pp. 397 ff. 



214 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

survival advantage would tend to fix it. There is no reason 
to suppose that the human organism differs essentially in such 
reactions from the plant, for example, which reacts by definite 
tropisms. Should the plant become reflective, it would doubt- 
less find the fundamental categories of space orientation as a 
part of its constitution. 

It is hardly necessary to point out that our space conscious- 
ness, as we find it in adult introspection, is a highly conven- 
tionalized affair, and shot through with conceptual elements. 
In the process of social interpretation and adjustment, we 
come to abstract from our individual perspectives of nearer 
and farther. The various perceptual contents are spread out 
into a common scheme. The two heterogeneous types of ''signs,'* 
furnished by sight and touch, are translated into common re- 
actions in the service of our practical interests. Loci are di- 
vested of their purely egoistic reference. Different astronomers 
in different parts of the world can direct their telescopes to the 
same point in the heavens, and different geographers can 
cooperate in piecing out the map of the earth. 

But such a perspective scheme, we must remember, is an 
artificial equivalent and not, as such at any rate, real. The 
map of England, with its dots and colors, the astronomer's 
squares and circles, the physicist's measures of footrules and 
yardsticks, are convenient substitutes for the actual relations 
and distances; but no one would maintain that they are the 
real thing. Even though perceptual symbols are used, as in 
the case of the map, the particular scale has nothing to do with 
the truthfulness of the map. It may be any scale, so long as it 
corresponds to the actual relations. With such a space con- 
struction, we have no quarrel so long as its phenomenal char- 
acter is recognized. We do find it convenient for social pur- 
poses to construct such a system of artificial shorthand for the 
real interactions of things. What we must insist is that such 
a conception means something more than the phenomenal 
equivalents with which it deals; that it serves to symbolize 
real externality or distance which the will must acknowledge, 
and for the sake of which it invents its system of artificial 
equivalents. Such a space conception, then, just because it 
is convenient, must point to some characteristic of the real 



PSYCHOLOGICAL AND GEOMETRIC SPACE 215 

world which furnishes the necessity for such spreading out, how 
artificial soever the ideal equivalents may be. 

Geometric Space 

It is in connection with mathematics, particularly geometry, 
that the nature of systems has been most clearly worked out. 
Whitehead, in his "Introduction to Mathematics," speaks of 
three concepts as fundamental in mathematics — variables, 
form, and generality. By generality is meant that entities 
and relations can be taken over and over again in the variety of 
successive and simultaneous contexts. This characteristic we 
have spoken of before as recurrence, which is the name Poin- 
care prefers. It does justice to the empirical fact that ex- 
perience is a moving quantity, at the same time that it has a 
certain simultaneous complexity. 

If we turn now to the aspect of elements or variables in 
geometrical constructions, we find that these present a wide 
range of choice to the geometrician. Since the organizing re- 
lation of geometrical order is that of before and after, which 
implies the relation of between, we can see that any entities which 
will satisfy this relation consistently with our postulates will 
serve the purpose. Such entities may be points, lines, solids, 
or numbers in accordance with our convenience. The real 
numbers furnish a mathematical continuum which satisfies 
all the demands of geometrical systems. In any case, our units 
are conventional so far as geometry is concerned. It is true, 
indeed, that they are derived from experience and the geo- 
metrician may, for the time being, turn psychologist. He may 
show, as Poincare has shown, that mathematical research, like 
all research, starts with intuition, even though it does not use 
intuition as a criterion of its validity. Our sense space, whether 
of sight or of active touch, does furnish us a manifold which can 
be spread out in various dimensions in accordance with the 
direction of differences implied. In the case of our sight space, 
we may arrange the variations of the pure color hues from red 
to yellow, yellow to green, green to blue, and blue to red along 
four axes so as to form a square. We may again arrange 
our grays in a linear dimension from the darkest black to the 
lightest white. We may also vary our color hues as regards satu- 



216 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

ration by moving them along the linear axis, which symbolizes 
the variations of brightness. Thus our artificial scheme for 
symbolizing the variations of light sensations gives a six- 
dimensional manifold ; but it is not geometry. The color quali- 
ties are not mere functions of position in a series. They are 
physical facts with a character and extension varying with 
physical (including physiological) conditions. The construc- 
tion of series is an after-thought. It is the qualities which 
determine the series and not the series the qualities. While 
there is psychological continuity in the graduated series of 
color quahties based on indistinguishables, this is very dif- 
ferent from the concept of mathematical continuity. A finite 
manifold, consisting of a definite number of qualitative posi- 
tions, could not furnish a basis for geometrical continuity. 
Moreover, physical colors vary with displacement, changing 
their quality with the direction of movement, while geometry 
demands that displacement shall make no difference to the 
entities involved, that is, it assumes free mobility. Nor will 
the situation be improved if we take the actual perspectives of 
the senses. In both our sight and our touch space, we must 
conceive certain qualitative differences, due to locality in the 
field, while geometry assumes a homogeneous space. But while 
the constitution of our sense manifolds does not make it possible 
to use them as bases for geometry, it is still true that they are 
the background of intuition which gives meaning to our ab- 
stractions; and the practical value, at any rate, of these ab- 
stractions is to furnish models which we can use in our concrete 
sense world. 

How dependent geometry is for its starting point upon the 
world of intuition can easily be shown by an examination of 
the three general axioms which underlie all geometry. These 
may be stated, for our purpose, as diversity of position or ex- 
ternahty, free mobility, and dimensionality. In each case, it 
is the background of intuition which gives meaning to our 
abstractions. Our geometrical positions are, in the first in- 
stance, abstractions from our sensations of movement, on the 
one hand, and from the substantive quahties which mark the 
termini of these movements in concrete perception, on the other 
hand. We can abstract from the specific qualities, and we have 



PSYCHOLOGICAL AND GEOMETRIC SPACE 217 

then the pure positions which have nothing as such to differ- 
entiate them, but must be defined entirely with reference to 
their external relations. Free mobihty is derived in the first 
place from the intuition of the unimpeded movements of our 
limbs, however much we must abstract from this consciousness 
to get our pure geometric limit. Dimensionahty is first of 
all a matter of the necessity of our biological reactions — in- 
grained into our nervous system by survival selection, and 
symboKzed by the three spirit levels of the semicircular canals, 
as well as other compensatory organic adjustments. It is 
clear that our bodily movements are a basic factor in the 
genesis of our notion of space. This has been well stated by 
Poincare : "For a being completely immovable there will be 
neither space nor geometry : in vain would exterior objects be 
displaced about him, the variations which these displacements 
would make in his impressions would not be attributed by this 
being to changes of position, but to simple changes of state ; 
this being would have no means of distinguishing these two sorts 
of changes, and this distinction, fundamental for us, would have 
no meaning for him."^ 

Geometry, today, prefers the analjrtic method, in deriving its 
elements, to the synthetic method used by EucKd. The syn- 
thetic method starts with the point as the unit. Two points 
uniquely determine a fine, three points determine a surface, 
and four points, a solid. This procedure is plainly circular. 
Points must in turn, be defined as determined by fines, fines 
as determined by surfaces, and surfaces by sofids. At each 
step, therefore, we presuppose the very entity which we are to 
define. We cannot possibly derive our more complex units 
from the simpler ones. Cayley proposed to remedy this diffi- 
culty by introducing the concept of motion. By moving a 
point, we get a line, by moving a fine, we get a plane, by moving 
a plane, we get a sofid. This amoimts, however, to our falling 
back upon our concrete intuition of the empirical sofid. Having 
abstracted from its empirical character and conceiving it as a 
rigid sofid, we can derive from this the concept of surfaces as its 
abstract boimdaries, we can conceive lines as the abstract 
boundaries of surfaces, and points as the abstract boundaries 

1 "The Value of Science," p. 48. 



218 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

of lines. But in any case, our geometrical entities are concep- 
tual limits, and for geometrical purposes may be taken as con- 
ventions, just as other sciences take a certain starting point 
for granted. The derivation of the elements is primarily a 
psychological question. This is equally true of the socalled 
a priori character of our fundamental geometric categories. 
We may have reason to believe that such geometric concepts 
as externality and the straight line have an organic basis, and 
are in this sense presuppositions of our perceptual adjustments, 
but this is a matter for psychology to determine. For geometry, 
they are conventions to be defined in its own way, and for 
its own purposes. 

It may be well to point out that the socalled non-Euclidean 
geometries are as dependent upon our concrete intuition for 
their content as are Euclidean geometries. Poincare has shown 
that the so-called Euclidean spaces can always be translated 
into terms of Euclidean geometry. This preestablished har- 
mony is due simply to the fact that the various geometrical 
systems, in so far as they stand for real content, are all abstrac- 
tions from our perceptual space experience. As a matter of 
fact, experience gives us all sorts of curvature. The non- 
Euclidean geometries, based upon positive or negative curva- 
ture, have their rise as truly in experience as the Euclidean 
elements, and would even seem to have the perceptual advan- 
tage since such elements as straight lines are not verifiable in 
the world of perception. Which type of geometry we shall 
use for practical purposes is of course a question of convenience 
for purposes of instrumental description. And here, the Eucli- 
dean seems to possess the advantage. So far as the variation 
of dimensions is concerned, we can find the basis for four or 
more dimensions in our actual experience even though our 
physical space seems determinable by three systems of coor- 
dinates. Poincare shows that, if, with the variations in space, 
we always had variations in temperature, the latter would 
furnish the basis for another system of coordinates. The 
number system, with its complexity of qualitative variations, 
gives us the basis for an indefinite number of dimensions. So 
long as we emphasize merely the order character of our space 
concepts, the number of dimensions should furnish no par- 



PSYCHOLOGICAL AND GEOMETRIC SPACE 219 

ticular difficulty ; and the number three is no longer particularly- 
sacred. Geometric space is anything that thought and imag- 
ination choose to constitute it. On its amorphous background, 
we can construct our systems at will in accordance with our 
postulates. 

As regards its method, geometric space is simply a matter of 
logic. If we choose to make certain assumptions, a logical 
system can be built upon these. It may be of one, two, three, 
or of n dimensions; it may be qualitative or quantitative; 
it may presuppose any kind of curvature or the absence of it ; 
it involves as many axioms as we choose to have; these may 
be less, or they may be more than those of Euclid, though as 
a matter of nomenclature, the question may be raised as to 
how far the term geometry should be applied to such construc- 
tions. It is simply a display of poetic imagination within the 
self-imposed rules of logic. It is no more the concern of the 
philosopher than any other product of poetic inventiveness, 
"Alice in Wonderland," for example. But, however much 
geometry may outstrip our humble sense world in its abstract 
procedure, and however imposing may be the logic of its method, 
it must always keep humble by remembering that it derives its 
content from experience; and that however unlimited may 
be its field, once it has set sail on the sea of pure abstraction, 
it only touches reality again when it returns to the necessities 
of concrete activity. And apart from its play value as a logical 
game, it must also prove an instrument in the realization of our 
purposes in the actual world. Within their own abstract 
domain, the mathematical ideals are posited as limits by our 
constructive will, and have no reality except as we thus posit 
them. 

The critical modern study of geometry, however, if it has 
thrown no new light on the nature of things, has thrown a great 
deal of light on the nature of thought. On the critical side it 
has had an immense value as a solvent in destroying not only 
mathematical dogmatism, which was the longest to hold out 
against the critical spirit, but dogmatism as regards other 
"eternal verities" as well, which pointed to the axioms of 
geometry as their type' and their warrant alike. The old 
bulwark of a priorism has at last been shattered. On its con- 



220 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

structive side, its chief contribution has been the clearer con- 
sciousness of the nature of systems. 

If we examine a httle more closely into the form of geometric 
systems, we find that the postulates which we assume must 
satisfy the following criteria of logical definition : in the first 
place, they must be independent, i.e. they must not overlap 
each other, and they must be capable of being taken as simple 
for the purpose in question. In the second place, they must 
be consistent with each other. We cannot conceive a contra- 
dictory world. In the third place, they must be sufficient. 
They must be capable of uniquely determining the system which 
we have set ourselves to construct. 

If we try to determine now what geometric postulates will 
satisfy these criteria, we must be guided here by the specific 
purpose that thought sets itself. In other words, it depends 
on what sort of geometry we want. There are some axioms, 
however, that seem to be imphed in all geometric constructions. 
These, we have seen, are the axioms of discrete or external 
positions ; of free mobility or displacement without change of 
state, i.e. with no other difference than change in position ; 
and dimensionality or the possibility of ordering our material 
into different series. Besides these general characteristics, 
each system of geometry adds its own unique characteristics. 
Thus metric geometry imphes the straight fine. Euclidean 
geometry adds certain empirical axioms which are borrowed 
from the physical space, in which we make our predictions and 
physical experiments. Euclid's definition of the straight fine 
as the shortest distance between two points, his axiom of 
parallels, his axiom of three dimensions, his definition that 
two straight lines cannot inclose a space — these must be 
treated as empirical laws in the sense that, while they seem to 
hold within our physical space, they are not essential to metric 
geometry in general. There seems to be no reason, however, 
why they should not be treated as conventions, and be used 
as a legitimate basis for geometric construction. 

It must be clear now that the only necessity which geom- 
etry knows is the necessity of logic. If we choose to work 
out a certain type of system, we are bound accordingly 
by logical rules to see to it that our postulates fulfill the 



PSYCHOLOGICAL AND GEOMETRIC SPACE ^ 221 

proper logical criteria within the constitution which we have 
selected. 

So far as geometry is concerned, the temporal order presents 
no unique problem. If we spatialize it, as has commonly been 
done, into a line, then whatever holds for linear space, whether 
taken qualitatively or quantitatively, would hold for the 
spatiaHzed temporal series. So long as we conceive the tem- 
poral order as an abstraction within which the present is merely 
a point which is posited by our thought, and from which we 
can proceed indifferently either backward or forward, as within 
geometric space, there is no reason why we should not geo- 
metrize our temporal order. It is not necessary to point out 
that this conception is entirely inadequate to the actual tem- 
poral world where movement imphes more than mere change 
of position in a series, and where empirical novelties and con- 
stancies become the object of interest. But geometry is no 
more concerned with the real temporal world than with the 
real spatial world. Its game is a game of logic. It is true that 
the physical scientist can select among mathematical models 
such as will enable him to manipulate or anticipate his facts. 
Mathematics does furnish a convenient framework for em- 
pirical science. But this is not the concern of pure mathe- 
matics, and is often best accomplished when most remote from 
the intent of the mathematician. It goes to show that our 
world is on the whole a logical world, or at any rate, a world 
where the ideals of logic are relevant. 

We may agree with Keyser that, in whatever sense Euclidean 
geometry can be said to exist, in the same sense can the other 
types of geometry, such as n-dimensional, be said to exist. But 
this amounts to saying that the reality of geometry is merely 
that of abstract logic, and that existence for geometry means 
merely the consistency of propositions with each other, and 
with the postulates of the special system. It has nothing to 
do with empirical existence. To quote from Whitehead : 
"All branches of pure mathematics deal merely with types of 
relations. Thus, the fundamental ideas of geometry {e.g. those 
of points and of straight lines) are not ideas of determinate en- 
tities, but of any entities for which the axioms are true. . . . 
They do not refer to a determinate subject. . . . The axioms 



222 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

are propositional functions. When a set of axioms is given, 
we can ask (1) whether they are consistent, (2) whether 
their existence theorem is proved, (3) whether they are 
independent." ^ 

We may agree with Kant to the extent of regarding geometric 
space as ideal. Its form is the form of thought itself ; and only 
in this sense does it predetermine our investigations. Looked 
upon as instrumental to our empirical world, mathematics serves 
beautifully to illustrate the three meanings of the term ideal. 
Ideal may mean an a posteriori and convenient fiction. This 
is illustrated in such conceptions as the trajectory of motion, 
and in Kepler's squares. The movement of the cannon ball 
does not really consist in the trajectory, though it is convenient 
for us to conceive such a line in space for its description. In the 
real movement there is the impulse which spends itself, and 
which, on the plate of our memory, or perhaps of the physical 
camera, leaves the record of a path in space. The movement 
itself is a unitary affair, and cannot be dealt with except for 
purely artificial purposes, as a series of static positions. Kep- 
ler's laws have been a convenient fiction for describing real 
planetary motions ; and, latterly, we have come to look upon 
the law of gravitation as a convenient approximation. Again, 
the ideal may be an abstraction from the real context. The 
geometric constellations may be a real aspect of the dynamic 
relations. The straight line seems to be a reality in the world 
of physical motion. Light seems to move in straight lines ; and 
so do all known entities, except in so far as they are influenced 
from their direction by other interfering energies. Geometric 
distances are real aspects of the physical world, for energies 
vary with the distance. Geometric shapes and numerical ratios 
must be taken account of in the empirical description of our 
world. Even linear direction must be taken as real, an aspect 
of an energy system, as is plainly seen, for example, in the case 
of inertia. Energies oppose less inertia to energies acting at 
the right angle to their direction than to those that act in an 
opposite direction. It is only as conceptual abstractions that 
such properties become conventional and inert. The concep- 
tual ax does not cut real wood nor do our conceptual shapes, 

» Article, "Geometry (VII)," Encyclopcedia Britannica, 11th ed. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL AND GEOMETRIC SPACE 223 

lines, and patterns effect physical changes. As aspects, how- 
ever, of energy systems, they become both real and effective. 
Descartes was not wrong in emphasizing the reality of the 
geometric characteristics of things. His error lay in neglecting 
other characteristics such as inertia. Finally, the ideal may 
figure as a formal limit to the empirical world. Our empirical 
observations may only approximate to such limits; and yet 
we are bound by the constitution of our minds to postulate 
them; and they may indeed, as Plato pointed out, be more 
real than our halting empirical approximations. In all three 
cases of the term ideal, mathematics seems to play a part in 
our dealing with the facts of our experience, — sometimes as 
a purely instrumental fiction in the service of our description ; 
sometimes as abstract though real relations within our world ; 
sometimes as certain logical and aesthetic norms which we de- 
mand that the universe shall respect. In the broad sense that 
the universe is a coherent and logical world, we may say that 
the universe geometrizes, however faulty may prove our own 
provisional generaHzations. 

The most brilliant of modern idealists has striven to give 
geometric perspective space a real existence in his final concep- 
tion of reality. In Fichte's "New Exposition of the Science 
of Knowledge," space becomes the "permanent, absolute con- 
templation," "which, however, presupposes itself as absolutely 
being to itself according to the demonstrated law of the reflec- 
tion of consciousness. It is the on-itself-reposing, firm glance 
of intelligence, the resting immanent Hght, the eternal eye 
in-itself, and for-itself." And again: "The substantial, solid 
and resting space is, according to the above, the original light, 
before all actual knowledge, only thinkable and intelligible, 
but not visible, and not to be contemplated, as produced through 
freedom." The construction of space is secondary, " a taking 
hold of itself on the part of light, a self-penetration of light, 
ever from one point and realized within knowledge itself; a 
secondary condition of light, which, for the sake of distinguish- 
ing it, we should term clearness, the act enlightening." And 
truly it needs enHghtening. What is significant for our pur- 
pose is that space becomes for Fichte the self-intuitive eternal 
system of truth, which for him amounts to reality. It is not 



224 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

merely the type of the eternal, but it is the eternal ; not merely 
the valid, but the real. Perhaps Fichte is right, that if we are 
to translate space into terms of one eternal self-contemplation, 
such must be its meaning. But that loses whatever of meaning 
space has for us. It reduces it to a mere spaceless eternal 
perspective. 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Nature of Real Space 

We have, in the previous chapter, examined into the pre- 
suppositions of space construction, and found that these must 
be expressed first of all in biological terms. We next took 
up the ontogenetic side of our space perception, and found 
that the content, in so far as it exists, is probably concomitant 
to the going on of the growth process, determined by the phylo- 
genetic tendencies, and intra- and extra-organic stimuli. 
What actual content there is, moreover, must be determined 
by statistical inquiry, and not a priori. We then examined 
into geometrical construction, and found this to be a matter 
of logic, and to be conducted as any free logical inquiry. The 
ideals, however, of mathematics, as other ideals, seem to have 
a phylogenetic basis. Lastly, we examined into the conception 
of space, as perspective, by metaphysical idealism. When 
regarded as phenomenal, we had no reason to quarrel with this 
view. When, however, translated into terms of absolute 
idealism, as by Fichte, space loses its significance. 

We must now turn to the other aspect of our concept, and 
try to discover what real space means, or what difference it 
makes in our accounting for the facts of experience. The 
series aspect of space, we have agreed, is ideal construction. 
Points exist only as we posit them as the ideal pegs on which 
we hang our qualitative world. To make up a real world of 
such ideal points, is absolute nonsense. But what remains 
after we abstract from this series character? Nothing at all, 
some would answer. Zeno is right that space is no thing. 
Neither are the positions in space things. They are our ideal 
abstractions for our convenience. But though space is no 
thing, we shall try to show that it is not a merely ideal nothing, 
but a real entity which conditions not only subjective construc- 
tion, but real action as well. 

225 



226 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

Proofs of the Existence of Space 

First of all, such a space zero is perfectly conceivable. The 
modern study of number has shown us that the conception of 
nothing does not equal no conception. The zero of the number 
series is of basic importance in the whole conception of number ; 
and as the number series is not intelligible without it, the number 
zero possesses all the reality of the series which it limits. But 
we can conceive pure space, as we conceive the number zero, 
as a limit by abstracting from the contents of space or the things 
in space. Hence, space must be as real as the things in space. 
It is a matter of surprise that while the importance of the zero 
concept for number has received so much attention in recent 
times, the importance of the space zero, which both chronologi- 
cally and ontologically is more fundamental, should have been 
ignored. But the reason for this can be found in the fact that, 
since Kant, thought has been more interested in its own ma- 
chinery than in its objective conditions. 

It is Parmenides who first builds a philosophy on the impossi- 
bility of conceiving empty space, and, consistently with that, 
outlaws motion. Failing to form a picture of pure space, he 
would forever taboo it as ''unspeakable." We can have only 
filled space, the homogeneous, spherical plenum. ''There is 
no more of it (being) in one place than in another, to hinder it 
from holding together, nor less of it, but everything is full of 
what is. Wherefore all holds together ; for what is, is in con- 
tact with what is." Empirical proof, Parmenides would scorn ; 
the mere inconceivability is enough. And so originated the 
thesis : nature abhors a vacuum, which certainly does not 
seem to be the case with the people's minds who have un- 
questioningly accepted this a priori statement in spite of the 
facts to the contrary. 

I have pointed out elsewhere that a priori inconceivability 
as regards existence is a matter of custom. It was once in- 
conceivable that men could sail outside the Pillars of Hercules ; 
that there could be more than seven planets, etc. But in all 
those cases, a priori inconceivabihty has given way to facts. 
And so it must in regard to pure space. While we have 
invented media with all sorts of contradictory properties to 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 227 

save our customary conception of motion as mechanical im- 
pact, we have finally come to the realization that the facts are 
simpler than our theories, and that if we dispense with our 
hypothetical media, we shall have all the results without absurd 
assumptions. As Professor L. T. More says : ''Direct evidence 
iljiows that kinetic energy is propagated through what experi- 
mentally must be regarded as empty space. This energy, 
called heat and light, passes to the earth from the sun, but is 
neither absorbed nor otherwise modified, until ponderable 
matter is encountered." ^ Pragmatically, space must be known 
through the difference it makes to the energies which traverse 
it. And this difference is a real difference, distinct from energetic 
reactions. We have passed from the stage of judging space 
a priori, to determining its existence and character by the 
actual difference it makes to behavior. It might be remarked, 
however, that if motion is a priori inconceivable without an 
absolute plenum, it is certainly a priori inconceivable in such a 
plenum — unless the plenum makes no difference, and then it 
is pragmatically indistinguishable from pure space, and scien- 
tifically superfluous. A relative plenum, the evidence indicates 
— space shot through with energies, where, however, we can both 
theoretically and physically abstract from the energies, and 
approximate pure space. One thing is certain, on no theory 
of the physical world can we get rid of the problem of energetic 
diversity, and of empirical distance as making a difference to 
interaction, whether it be in our conceptions of the constitution 
of the stellar constellations, or of the minute energetic constella- 
tions of electric charges within the atom. In any case energy 
does not abhor spatial distance, but implies it. 

Once having shown the conceivabihty of pure space, we must 
prove its existence, as we prove the reality of any other entity, 
by showing its convenience for describing the facts of experience. 
The criterion of the reality of our concepts is everywhere the 
same : Does the concept work ? Does it make experience 
simple, consistent, and intelligible ? Must we act as if it were 
so? We must not start by assuming space to be a thing-in- 
itself, but judge it by its properties as required by practical 
experience. How blind the dogmatic method can make us is 

1 Hibhert Journal, Vol. VIII, p. 816. 



228 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

well illustrated by Russell: "Assuming that there is physical 
space, and that it does correspond to private space, what can 
we know about it? We can know only what is required, in 
order to secure the correspondence. That is to say, we can 
know nothing of what it is like in itself, but we can know the 
sort of arrangement of physical objects which results from their 
spatial relations." ^ But when we know this, don't we know 
the nature of space? 

Kant argues that we cannot prove the existence of empty 
space, because we can have no intuition of empty space : *' We 
see, therefore, that experience can never supply a proof of 
empty space or empty time, because the total absence of reality 
in a sensuous intuition can itself never be perceived, neither 
can it be deduced from any phenomenon whatsoever, and from 
the difference of degree in its reality; nor ought it ever to be 
admitted in explanation of it. . . . As every reality has its 
degree which may diminish by infinite degrees down to the 
nothing or void, there must be infinite^ differing degrees in 
which space and time are filled." ^ If space is not a thing, it 
must be clear that pure space could not be perceived, since per- 
ception is an energetic relation of stimulus and organism. Nor 
could we note degrees of its presence or absence, since it is not 
an energetic quantity. We can, however, verify it through 
experience indirectly, as we succeed in abstracting from the 
energies which ordinarily fill it. The vacuum of the receiver 
is noticed by the absence of sound. The infinite degrees 
which we must pass through to arrive at the absence of any 
energy are a matter of mathematical description, and do not 
prevent us from actually exhausting the real energies. 

We must conceive of pure space as the precondition of filled 
space, as the limit of exhaustion, which, moreover, we can 
approximately attain. If by exhaustion, we could get the 
space zero without content or resistance, it must have been 
real all the while. It is not necessary to the reality of pure 
space that it should actually exist separately or empty. We 
cannot get the quality of blue separate from all other facts, 

1 Bertrand Russell, "The Problems of Philosophy," p. 49, 

2 " Critique of Pure Reason," Transcendental Analytic : Anticipations of Per- 
ception, p. 141, Max Miiller'a translation. 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 229 

yet we do not therefore deny its existence. If we can approxi- 
mate pure space as a limit, it must be just as real as though 
it existed separately. The nearer we succeed in such abstrac- 
tion, the better we can ascertain the properties of pure space. 
These properties we can even now predict as limits. It is 
convenient, therefore, to conceive of pure space, whether 
empty or filled. Only with reference to it can relative emptiness 
or relative resistance have meaning. To illustrate, let us as- 
sume that hydrogen gas is the only gas that passes through 
platinum. Suppose, then, that we have a vessel of platinum 
filled with pure hydrogen gas. Let this escape, and what is 
left? 

The usefulness of the concept of spatial intervals within the 
minute structure of the atom itself has recently been shown 
by Professor T. W. Richards. That the atom is not the absolute 
plenum which Democritus took it to be, but is a composite 
constellation, has been proved from radio-active phenomena. 
Professor Richards proves the same from the simple facts 
of the compressibility of solids. To quote his own statement : 
*'The idea that atoms may be compressible receives striking 
confirmation from a recent investigation concerning the small 
effect of low temperatures on the compressibility of metals. 
The average compressibility of aluminum, iron, copper, silver, 
and platinum falls off only seven per cent, between the tempera- 
ture of the room, and that of liquid air. Extrapolation of the 
curves indicates that at the absolute zero, very little further 
diminution should occur. So far as we can guess, therefore, 
the hard metals are almost as compressible at the absolute zero 
as at room temperatures. But at the absolute zero, all heat- 
vibration is supposed to stop; hence this remaining com- 
pressibility must needs be ascribed to the atoms themselves." ^ 

The conception of zero space has proved convenient as a 
limit in conceiving Newton's first law of motion. While this 
law is an abstraction, it must be remembered that such ab- 
traction is empirically possible to a certain extent. The ab- 
straction, therefore, is not merely ideal. On the contrary, 
it is real conditions which we must deal with in treating of 
resistance and motion. ' I cannot see how a merely ideal limit 

1 Address before London Chemical Society, 1911. 



230 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

could make any difference to actual movement. Mathematical 
points, lines, and surfaces, while legitimate abstractions, neither 
obstruct nor facilitate movement. They only exist in our 
ideal dimension. Even if we have not been able to get abso- 
lutely empty space, we can, as already shown, approximate to it 
and predict definitely what would happen if we could get it. 
The only problem is : Are we compelled to assume such an 
entity in order to account for the facts of experience? By 
postulating pure space, we find it easier at any rate to account 
for the forms of motion as they actually take place owing 
to the resistance and diversity of the physical world. The 
convenience of the conception must indicate that it has a 
foundation in the real, otherwise it could not be empirically 
approximated as well as hypothetically useful. It is the real 
limit which makes our conception relevant. 

Even geometry in assuming free mobility as one of its few 
remaining axioms, shows that it means by space something 
more than series, for free mobility is the very precondition of 
space construction. If, after abstracting from things, space 
itself offered resistance, geometry would not be possible. Even 
in geometry, therefore, pure space is presupposed as objective 
to serial construction. 

The conception of space distance cannot be explained as a 
property, either of things or of selves, and yet conditions the 
actions of things. By distance, I do not presuppose our geomet- 
rical concepts such as the straight line. A straight stick is more 
convenient than a crooked stick for social measurements, but 
in either case, we presuppose the externality, or side-by-side- 
ness, of perceptual processes. A yard stick, while a convenient 
unit, does not create the distance it measures. This differs, 
moreover, from the ideal distance or stretch in our conception 
of series, for example. Distance transferred to mental processes 
and their externality is only a figure of speech. Space distance 
is the only real distance we can conceive. All other distance 
or stretch depends upon this. Number distance or tone distance 
is a qualitative conception, and merely means degree of differ- 
ence, or intervals in an order series. It has nothing to do with 
space, except as for convenience we spread out our qualitative 
differences in space. Except for space distance, however, all 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 231 

perceptual things would have to coalesce or interpenetrate. 
Pure space, then, must be real, if distance must be conceived 
as real. 

Without the conception of distance, both acceleration and 
the limitations of intersubjective communication become un- 
intelligible. Wills, appreciative selves, while not extended, are 
limited by conditions which must be met and cannot simply 
be brushed aside as illusions. Here lies the difference between 
real distance, and the derivative conception of distance or 
stretch in series such as the number and tonal series. In the 
latter case, the distance or stretch is determined by the will, 
is comprised within its purpose. A long stretch or a short 
stretch will serve equally well to spread out its contents, so as 
to indicate the direction of difference ; and as the termini are 
comprehended within the will's own positing, they put no 
condition upon the will as regards passing from one to the other. 
They are only ideally external within a unity of consciousness 
which claims them equally and simul. Not so with space 
distance. Here the distance which separates friends in America 
and Europe, and limits their intercourse is not the creature 
of their ideal positing simply ; the ideal bridging of it does not 
remove the limitation to the will as in the case of two points 
in a series. If it is posited by them, it is because they are 
compelled to do so, and no enlightenment from Kantian idealists 
serves to sweep away the limitation. In short, what makes 
other egos and things objective to me, viz., their independence 
of my subjective purposes, makes also space as distance ob- 
jectively real to me. As I must acknowledge other egos, so 
in order to realize my practical purposes, I must acknowledge 
space. Space is the condition of the externality of egos, and 
of things, too, whether they can be acknowledged as egos or not. 
It is not a subjective, but an inter-subjective condition, limit- 
ing the communication and cooperation of egos. Within the 
ego, space exists at most only figuratively, as when we speak 
of the space of our ideas. 

We often speak, in this age of electricity, of annihilating dis- 
tance. It is true that social sympathy and unity are possible 
in this age to an extent they never have been before. Human- 
ity? by means of the telegraph and telephone, can live a common 



232 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

life to a marvelous degree. And yet it is loose language even 
so to speak of the annihilation of distance, for distance does 
make a decidedly measurable difference to our communication. 
While the conditions of social unities have altered vastly since 
the days of the proximity of tribal life, still it makes a differ- 
ence to the kind of relations we can have with each other that 
we are separated by distance. 

Nor can we regard space as subjective, and motion as objec- 
tive, the halfway house of some philosophers. If we regard 
motion and change as objective, we have to regard space as 
objective. This is true of qualitative change as well as quanti- 
tative, as the former too would be impossible without some 
kind of pluralism and externality. Melissos saw deeper than 
he knew when he maintained that if there is rearrangement, 
there must be empty space, even though he supposed the con- 
clusion to be absurd (taboo it really had become, and has been 
mostly since) and so returned to the solid block universe of 
Parmenides. This he conceived as unlimited to exclude empty 
space from the outside. 

In explaining motion, we have found the conception of pure 
space useful in two ways. First, it makes it possible to ab- 
stract from bodies and resistance, and so to state Newton's 
first law of motion. Secondly, it gives us the possibility of 
objective distance, which cannot be reduced to the properties 
of things. Reactions of things, while they are determined by 
the properties of things, also vary with distance, which there- 
fore, cannot be regarded as merely subjective. It is hard to 
see how mere subjective position could influence the intensity 
of motion. Motion in an ideal space should be consigned to 
the confused limbo of square circles, mermaids, and centaurs. 

Our space conception must be such in the end as to satisfy 
our space intuition. While we must not invoke intuition as 
explanation, yet we must always start with intuition, and the 
conceptualizing process must be such as to clarify and terminate 
in intuition. Where our intuitions, moreover, as in our general 
reactions upon our environment, are due to survival selection, 
they have, as Spencer says, well-nigh the force of demonstra- 
tion, and must not be lightly brushed aside. While the space 
intuition cannot be expected to separate sharply between the 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 233 

physical and spatial character of our world, yet the unspoiled 
space intuition always has insisted upon an ontological zero space 
as over against physical and subjective things. Hence, the 
natural part the void plays in early cosmogonic and physical 
theories. However much cruder the tools of Leucippus and 
Democritus than those of Kant, yet their conception of an 
ontological void gives us a more fundamental character of the 
space concept than the aspect of serial construction emphasized 
by the Kantians. 

Most important of all is the fact that this conception of space 
satisfies the criterion made so much of by the epistemological 
ideahsts themselves, and more than once impHed in the pre- 
ceding, viz. that those conditions which Hmit, and must be 
taken account of in the reahzation of purpose, must themselves 
be real. Otherwise, they would not be conditions. Space 
and time must certainly be taken account of in reahzing our 
human purposes; therefore, they must be as real as those 
purposes themselves. If they were merely illusion, or '' mere 
appearance," then it ought to be possible to ignore them, at least 
after finding out the truth about them. Take space distance, 
for example. Our measurement of this with reference to geomet- 
rical ideals, such as the straight line, our use of a particular 
kind of measuring rod, such as the yardstick, must, indeed, be 
regarded as a matter of ideal selection and construction. But 
if I Hve on the Pacific coast, and an important philosophical ses- 
sion is held in New York, or if I want to see my friends across 
the sea, the mere declaring space ideal does not annihilate the 
limitation. Intermediary processes must somehow be reckoned 
with; and those processes presuppose space as the condition 
of their externahty. Thus, space as distance conditions the 
equations of the astronomer and the joy and communion of 
wiOing selves. And so with time. No mere conversion to 
absolute ideahsm wiU make new wine old, will convert youth 
into old age, or make the faded flower bloom again. I do not 
see how in the only world of purposes of which we know any- 
thing, it is possible to ignore the space and time Umitations of 
those purposes. We grant that the space and time characters 
taken apart are meager enough when contrasted with the 
concrete life of feehng and wiUing. We are, indeed, in our 



234 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

inmost beings willing and appreciative selves. But space and 
time remain, nevertheless, irreducible limits to which we must 
adjust ourselves, if we would be sane. Only by so adjusting 
ourselves can we realize our purposes. 

I do not insist upon a greater reality for space than for egos 
or things, i.e. for energy, whatever form it may take. All 
I insist upon is that we must acknowledge both types of reality. 
The question whether space could exist before things could 
have meaning only for those who, with the medievals, regard 
the world of things as created at a finite time out of nothing — 
as embodying eternal archetypes or what not. It is the prov- 
ince of philosophy like science, however, to investigate the 
constitution of the world, not its creation. The temporal 
priority of space to things, can therefore, have no significance 
for us. We can, however, abstract distance from things, and 
must do so, both for purposes of physical science, and for 
practical life. 

Properties of Space 

If space is real, we cannot determine its properties aprioriy 
but must ascertain them in the same empirical way as we 
ascertain the properties of things. We must distinguish here 
between the methods of geometry and the methods of empirical 
science. In the former case, we have seen that the properties 
are predetermined by the postulates of the specific system. In 
the case of real space, as in regard to the empirical world 
generally, the properties must be discovered inductively. "It 
is true that by natural selection, our mind has adapted itself 
to the conditions of the external world,'* as Poincarf^ says. It 
is thus predisposed to certain types of reactions which are ad- 
vantageous in the world in which we find ourselves. But this 
predisposition, so far from proving space categories to be 
phenomenal, as Kant would have it, would tend to show their 
relevance. They have been forced upon the organism as a 
result of the demands of the environment. Science, however, 
cannot stop with intuition, but must supplement and correct 
intuition by experiment. 

The question naturally arises how we can experiment upon 
space. Poincar6 holds that we can only experiment upon 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 235 

bodies, and their relations: "Experiments only teach us the 
relations of bodies to one another ; none of them bears, or can 
bear, on the relations of bodies with space, or on the mutual 
relations of different parts of space.'' And again: *'Your 
experiments, however numerous they may be, bearing only on 
the relations of bodies to one another, will reveal to us nothing 
about the mutual parts of space." ^ This argument does not 
seem conclusive. While it is true that the experiments bear 
directly on bodies in space, it is also true that, indirectly at 
any rate, we can know the properties of space by the differences 
which they make to the reactions of bodies or other energies. 
If space had four dimensions instead of three, if it were dis- 
continuous, if it offered interference to motion, etc., we would 
find it out in the reactions of things; and our account of 
reahty would have to be different. The case of space is in no 
wise different from that of other entities of which we have no 
immediate evidence, but which we assume and endow with 
definite properties in order to account for the behavior of 
entities with which we can directly deal. 

While we must distinguish between the properties of real 
space, and the properties which are postulated by the various 
types of geometry, in some respects we can expect to find 
agreement since the world of geometry is an abstraction from 
our concrete experience. We must be careful, however, that 
the agreement is not one of mere words rather than of funda- 
mental intent. Thus, the property of externality is a funda- 
mental condition, both of geometric space and real space. 
ExternaUty, however, in geometric space may have to do only 
with quaHtative diversity in an order series, though in metric 
geometry, it seems to imply something more. It here, at 
least, symboHzes distance. ExternaUty in the case of real 
space, is such as the physicist and astronomer, as well as the 
practical man, must deal with in their calculations and practical 
adjustments. According to Newton's law of gravitation, the 
attraction of bodies upon each other varies with the masses 
and inversely as the square of the distance. In all formulae 
for energy reactions, distance figures as an independent and 
unique variable. This is as true in our social interrelations of 
1 "Science and Hypothesis," p. 60. 



236 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

love and war as of light rays and stellar masses. This is quite 
different from externahty in a series, such as the number or 
tone series. Externality, in the latter case, is merely figurative, 
and indicates the direction of differences. 

Geometric space, and real space are both, it would seem, 
characterized by dimensionality. But here, again, the meaning 
of the term may be vastly different. Dimension in geometry 
has reference to different directions of variations. The number 
of dimensions is determined by our postulates. When we 
speak of real space as having three dimensions, we mean that 
positions within it are determinable with reference to three 
straight lines at right angles to each other, or the Cartesian 
coordinates. Now the coordinates themselves are, of course, 
conventional. Real space, so far as we know, is divided by no 
straight lines at right angles to each other. These are supplied 
by our mind. Some other device might do for symbolizing the 
relations of bodies to each other in space. But the Cartesian 
coordinates are the most convenient. And they are the most 
convenient, because they enable us to adjust ourselves to the 
character of real space in the simplest way. While it is not 
correct, perhaps, therefore to say that space has three dimen- 
sions, space has such a constitution as is determinable by the 
three Euclidean dimensions. No less will suffice for our ad- 
justments to the real world in space, and no more are necessary. 
If an additional dimension were necessary, we should soon find 
it out, as things would continually vanish out of our ken and 
mysteriously reappear in our world, contrary to all our laws of 
expectancy. When they seem to do so, it is hocus-pocus. 
The temporal order has sometimes been spoken of as a fourth 
dimension. It is, indeed, another dimension with its own deter- 
minations and order, but it is not a dimension of space. 

Another characteristic which geometric space and real space 
seem to have in common is that of homogeneity. Space is 
neutral with reference to the quantitative and quaUtative 
diversity of the world of energies. It has no positions or rela- 
tions of its own. This implies, in the words of Simon Newcomb : 
(a) '' It is the same for all bodies. Wherever one body could 
move, thither could any other body move." (h) "It has no 
qualities or differentia dependent either on position or direc- 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 237 

tion." 1 In a more picturesque way, this has been expressed 
by Clerk Maxwell: *' There are no landmarks in space. One 
portion of space is exactly Hke any other portion, so that we 
cannot tell where we are. We are, as it were, on an unruffled 
sea, without stars, compass, soundings, wind, or tide, and we 
cannot tell in what direction we are going. We haye no log 
which we can cast out to take a dead reckoning by. We may 
compute our rate of motion with respect to the neighboring 
bodies, but we do not know how these bodies may be moving in 
space." 2 While homogeneity is a characteristic ahke of geome- 
tric and real space, it is a mere abstract postulate for geometry, 
while it must be empirically ascertained for real space. Energies 
act as if real space were homogeneous. We can satisfactorily 
account for the behavior of things in space by taking account 
merely of their own positions and relations. These are not 
distorted in any manner by space. This makes possible free 
mobility so far as space is concerned. 

Real space seems to be homoloidal, that is, two parallel 
straight lines may be produced indefinitely without converging 
or diverging. This property it shares with Euclidean geometry 
which is shaped upon the properties of real space. It is not a 
postulate of various types of non-Euclidean geometry. We 
may construct a geometry on the assumption of positive or nega- 
tive curvature. But so far as experiments are able to ascertain, 
real space has zero curvature. Light rays travel in straight 
Hues. To be sure, this, as other characteristics, must be taken 
as pragmatic. As Clifford has pointed out, a sUght departure 
towards positive or negative curvature might escape our in- 
struments of observation. If space and things ahke had a 
certain inherent curvature, it would, of course, be impossible 
for us to discover. Our straight lines would in that case be 
a certain standard curve which practically would mean a 
straight hne. We have not spoken of the supposition of pro- 
jective geometry, that parallel lines meet at infinity, since this 
is a mere convention to make it possible to deal with all lines 
imder a common formula. 

Another pragmatic characteristic of space, is that of conti- 

^ Article, " Space," Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. 
2 "Matter and Motion, " Article CII. 



238 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

nuity. Space seems to be the one absolute static continuum. 
In a space made up of real discrete points, objects would have 
to vanish, and to be recreated again at every stage of their 
motion. While such miraculous occasionalism may not be 
inconceivable, since it has been conceived by philosophers, it 
is certainly a clumsy assumption, and violates the law of econ- 
omy. Our experience seems to indicate that we have identity 
within the movement. Things do not disappear and reappear, 
but persist through their motion in space. 

We must be careful here not to confuse the mathematical 
conception of continuity, and the conception of a metaphysical 
continuum. The mathematical concept of continuity is an 
order concept. In the words of Fine : ''The points of a right 
line constitute an ordinal assemblage of points, which is called 
continuous because it possesses the following attributes : 
(1) Between any two points of the line there are other points 
of the Une (Aristotle and Kant). (2) If all the points of a Hne 
are distributed in accordance with any given law into two assem- 
blages, A and B, so related that each point in A lies to the 
left of every point in B, either the assemblage A will possess a 
last point to the right, or the assemblage B a first point to the 
left (Cantor, Dedekind)." ^ Stated briefly, this means that 
a line is infinitely divisible, on the one hand, and that any cut 
of the line is common to the two divisions thus constituted. In 
the case of numbers, this means that the irrationals, such as 
the cube root of two, are required as well as the rationals, i.e., 
it is the series of real numbers which is continuous. The ques- 
tion of ordinal continuity as thus defined is, however, a dis- 
tinct question from that of the metaphysical continuum. To 
quote from Poincare : ''The continuum so conceived is only a 
collection of individuals ranged in a certain order, infinite in 
number, it is true, but exterior to one another. ... Of the 
celebrated formula, 'the continuum is unity in multiplicity,' 
only the multiplicity remains, the unity has disappeared. 
The Analysts are none the less right in defining their continuum 
as they do. . . . But this is enough to apprise us that the 
veritable mathematical continuum is a very different thing 

* "Continuity (in Geometry)," Baldwin's Dictionary of PhUoaophy and 
Psychology. 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 239 

from that of the physicists, and that of the metaphysicians." ^ 
The real continuum imphes interpenetration of parts and not 
the mere side-by-sideness of a quahtative order. We derive 
our intuition of continuity first of all from our free movements 
with their unity of impulse, and we then extend our intuition 
to other moving continua. But all moving continua presuppose 
the pure continuum of space — interpenetration without dif- 
ference, the pure amorphous background upon which all our 
physical and mathematical continua can be drawn. While 
the present mathematical definition of continuity seems to be 
satisfactory for the ordinal type of continuum, it cannot be said 
to define the unique type of continuum, which we find in the 
case of space. 

The granular conception seems on the whole to have been 
victorious in the physical world. The ether, indeed, has long 
been depended upon to fill the gaps and to furnish a genuine 
physical continuum. It was invented on the analogy of known 
media. As sound travels through the medium of air, so it 
was supposed that light must have a medium to travel through, 
and this medium is consequently conceived as having the ve- 
locity of light. The analogy is faulty, however, since sound is 
a complex energy, while light is a simple type of energy. Again, 
air waves are a genuine form of energy, which the ether sup- 
posedly is not. The fact is that on this reasoning, we would 
require an infinite regress. If each energy requires a medium 
to travel through, then this in turn must have a medium to 
travel through, and so on, indefinitely. If, moreover, the 
ether has the velocity of light, then some other form of energy 
of vastly higher velocity perhaps, would require a different 
medium. Lord Kelvin, for example conceives gravitation as 
having a velocity a million times faster than that of light. 
To say dogmatically that there can be no higher velocity than 
that of hght, since that is the velocity of the ether, sounds rather 
medieval. Furthermore, the properties of ether, as pointed out 
by Karl Pearson, are far from clear and distinct. They seem 
to include, side by side, the properties of absolute fluidity and 
absolute incompressibility. ''Treating the ether, not as a 
conception, but as a phenomenon, we find it difficult to realize 

1 "Science and Hypothesis," p. 17. 



240 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

how a continuous and same medium could offer any resistance 
to a sliding motion of its parts, for the continuity and sameness 
would involve, after any displacement, everything being the 
same as before displacement. . . . Finally, any relative motion 
of translation as distinct from one of rotation, seems excluded 
by the idea of absolute incompressibility. . . . When we pro- 
ject the ether into our phenomenal world, it is at once recognized 
as a conceptual limit unparalleled in perceptual experience, 
and we do not feel at home with it." ^ The ether, as ordinarily 
conceived, thus embodies two opposite limits, that of the 
absolutely rigid solid, on the one hand, and that of an absolutely 
fluid continuum on the other hand. The former Hmit is evi- 
dently derived from the physical world as we know it. The 
latter limit would seem to be identical pragmatically with 
pure space. 

If, again, we conceive the ether as granular, we must give 
up the property of an absolute continuum so far as it is con- 
cerned. This is not always clear to those who hold the view. 
Sir Oliver Lodge, in speaking of the ether, says: "As to its 
density, it must be far greater than that of any form of matter, 
millions of times denser than lead or platinum. Yet matter 
moves through it, without any friction or viscosity. There is 
nothing paradoxical in this : viscosity is not a function of 
density; the two are not necessarily connected." ^ it is, 
however, not a question of degree of density, but of the absence 
of discrete units, however packed these discrete units may be. 
If they act as separate impulses over any distance, we have no 
guarantee of an absolute continuum; this must be looked for 
outside of the constitution thus assumed. 

Another property which is implied in regard to space is that 
of infinity. This property, again, must not be confused with 
the ordinal infinity of mathematics which does not occupy real 
space at all. The question of the infinite extent of real space 
is a pragmatic one. It is certainly true for our scientific pur- 
poses. However much the powers of our telescopes may be 
improved, we cannot discover any limit to space. Yet this 

» "The Grammar of Science," 2d ed., p. 271. 

> Presidential Address before the British Association, Science, Vol. XXXVIII, 
p. 388. 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 241 

fact can never amount to an absolute proof. Such a proof 
would have to be indirect, and based on logical considerations. 
It is true that we cannot conceive the contrary. While we 
can conceive a limit to the physical world in space, we cannot 
conceive coming to the end of the void. But, as we have pointed 
out before, our abihty to conceive the contrary is largely a 
matter of custom with its habits of thought, and, in any case, 
cannot amount to absolute proof where the constitution of our 
empirical world is concerned. A more satisfactory approach 
would be from our knowledge of the constitution of the physical 
world. If Arrhenius is right that the physical world must be 
conceived as infinite, that would also prove the infinity of space. 
To quote: ''The most obvious argument, however, against 
the finite quantity of matter in space is the fact that the energy 
of the stellar bodies in the course of infinite time would long 
ago have been dissipated in empty space so that no luminous 
stars could further exist." ^ Whether such an argument as 
regards the give and take of energy proves the most convenient 
hypothesis, science must decide. It implies the infinity of our 
particular type of space. It is possible, perhaps, to conceive 
that our space is insulated by another type of space with oppo- 
site properties. Science, however, assumes the oneness of 
space as well as its infinity, that is, that the properties are the 
same throughout an infinite void. Such characters of space 
are, of course, pragmatic, and capable only of empirical proof 
which cannot go beyond probability. If space, moreover, 
is infinite, there may be other worlds quite unknown to us, 
and incapable of making any pragmatic difference to the world 
as we know it. The law of gravitation and other known 
laws are based upon finite distances. But perhaps, the science 
of an indefinite future may have superior tools, instrumental 
and logical to those known to us ; and before these, such prob- 
lems as those of the infinity and unity of space may yield. 
For us, these properties are in a large measure conventional, 
though fitting in with our experience and congenial to the 
constitution of our minds. 

In addition to such properties as geometry and physics ap- 
parently have in common, real space has certain properties 

1 Monist, Vol. XXI, p. 173. 



242 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

which seem strictly physical. Such a property is that of 
absolute conductivity. Negatively stated, this means that 
space offers no interference, no friction, or viscosity, to the 
spread of energies such as the rays of light. Light is in no 
wise interfered with, it would seem, until it strikes opaque 
bodies. Positively it means that energy does flow from part 
to part of the universe without loss or absorption so far as 
space is concerned. The nearer we approximate to pure space 
in our experiments and observations, the more perfect is the 
conductivity. It is practically perfect in our vacuum tubes, 
and in the interstellar spaces. Where there is interference, we 
can always account for it satisfactorily on the basis of the con- 
flict of energies. If the world of energies must be conceived, 
whether in the gross or in the minute, as impulses acting over 
distance, space becomes the conductive medium par excellence. 
We are familiar with energies riding on other energies — elec- 
tricity riding on material energies, mental impulses riding 
on neural energies — but the world of energies, as a whole, 
rides on nothing but space. And the properties of space 
are such as to harmonize with the law of conservation of 
energy. 

Again, cosmic space is said to have the property of absolute 
zero with reference to temperature. This would seem, at 
first glance, to be a merely negative property — the absence 
of heat, or the absence of motion. "A substance composed 
of molecules at rest is absolutely cold, and no substance can 
be imagined to be colder. The absolute zero of temperature 
is the true zero of a thermometric scale, not the freezing point 
of water or of any other substance." ^ "The absolute zero 
of temperature is 273° below zero on the Centigrade scale. 
The Absolute Scale of Temperature, as it is called, is thus ob- 
tained by adding 273° to the temperature expressed in degrees 
Centigrade." ^ While absolute zero is not heat, but the 
limit as regards heat, it must, however, like zero curvature, be 
taken as a real property of space if it conditions the movement 
of energies in space. Thus it would seem to make a real difference 
to the radiation and loss of heat. It would have to be taken 
into account, in connection with such a problem as the possi- 

» Soddy, "Matter and Energy," p. 84. * Ihid., p. 87. 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 243 

bility of communicating life germs across interstellar space. 
It would seem, therefore, to be a real limit which must be 
recognized in the world of behavior. 

It is evident that if space is a real entity, even though not a 
thing entity, we must ascertain its properties empirically, as 
those of other real entities. The properties we have enumerated 
seem to be such empirical properties. If we can conceive such 
a space, then it can be real. If we can approximate towards 
it in our experiments and observations, then it must be real. 
If it is impHed in our practical conduct towards our world, 
then we have already assumed it to be real. Whether it is 
exactly as described or whether it has still other properties, 
must be left for scientific experience to ascertain. In the 
real world, we deal with probabilities, not with a 'priori cer- 
tainties. 

Objections to Real Space 

It*^ would not be necessary to go back to the naive objections 
of Parmenides, if it were not for the hold which they have con- 
tinued to exercise upon the human mind. Parmenides' objec- 
tions arise from his fundamental conception of reality. For 
him only inert material things are real. These, however, are 
not our ordinary sense things, but intellectual abstractions. 
Their only quality is their space-filling quality, or, as we should 
call it, impenetrability. It is to Parmenides' immortal credit 
that he foreshadows in his abstract way the conception of the 
conservation of matter, and of the conservation of properties. 
If we grant his premises in regard to '* being," his conclusions 
do credit to one of the greatest intellects of antiquity. If 
inert, space-filling matter is the only reality, it follows, of 
course, that empty space and empty time are "unthinkable and 
unspeakable"; but this only serves to show how limited by 
custom conceivability is, and how unreliable as a criterion 
of reality ; and Parmenides is not the only one who has made 
the impossibility of conceiving the contrary the final test. If 
there can be nothing between the different parts of matter, then 
matter must lie next to matter, and we have an absolute 
plenum. We must agree with Parmenides that space is no 
material thing ; but our intellect has been liberated from the 



244 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

conception that only material things are real. We can conceive 

immaterial energies, and entities which are not even energies, 
such as pm-e space. ^Moreover, we no longer regard matter 
as inert, but as itself a special form of energy. Impenetrabihty, 
the only property conceded by the economic mind of 
Parmenides, who scorns the wealth of sense quaUties as appear- 
ance, is itself an energy- propert}^ and only known in energy 
reactions. It is true that the human mind has clung tena- 
ciously to a plenum of some sort. But to say that a thing can 
onlj' act where it is, is to say that it cannot act at all, for in 
order for one thing to act upon another, they could not be even an 
infinitesimal distance apart. That means, that they must be 
coincident or identical, not only as regards their gross struc- 
ture, but as regards their minutest constitutents as well. In 
that case, there can obviously be no motion. So if there is 
motion, there must be action over distance. This would hold 
equally for any medium through which things are supposed 
to act upon each other. Energ}^ is where it does work; and 
there is nothing against energy' radiating over pure space except 
our ingrained prejudice. Custom makes it seem uncanny. 
But custom is not a final criterion of reaUty. 

The objections brought by Zeno are directed against the 
Pji;hagorean conception of space, as made up of an infinite 
series of discrete real points. Against this conception, Zeno's 
brilliant dialectic is conclusive. If space is made up of real 
points, then the point itself must be in a certain place. This 
place, in turn, being a real entity, must be located in another 
place, and so on ad infinitum. In such a space, there could be 
no motion, for a body could not move where it is, nor could it 
move from one point to another. To do that, it would have 
to vanish and be recreated, which is not motion at all. The 
arrow is stuck in its place, transfixed by its position, and it 
cannot move. Nor would it help us to take large quantities 
of space as our unit, since these would crumble in turn into 
their non-extended components. While Zeno's arguments are 
conclusive against any conception of a real serial space, it does 
not affect the concept of space as we have defined it. Points 
here are merely our ideal abstractions, and do not constitute 
the continuum of real space. 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 245 

Aristotle's argument against the void is an argumentum ad 
hominem. It is directed against the conception of the atomists. 
If we may beheve Aristotle, Democritus assumed that heavier 
atoms would fall more rapidly in the void than lighter ones, 
and would thus collide and form a whirl. Aristotle is quite 
right that pure space does not account for motion or rest; it 
accounts for no tendency downward or upward; much less 
can it account for the different rates of motion as faster or 
slower, in so far as we abstract from the relations of bodies. 
Motion and difference of motion must be accounted for by the 
constitution of the world of energies. Space is neutral to 
motion except in so far as the conception of distance is involved. 
Not until Newton's theory of gravitation did it become clear 
what exact difference space makes in the interaction of energies. 
And what Newton did in the large has since been done in the 
small, as in the calculations of J. J. Thomson and others, in 
regard to the interaction of the electrons within the atom. In 
antiq[uity, Aristotle succeeded in discrediting the atomists, and 
in keeping alive the crude conception of "natural places." 
Aristotle's own conception is that of figured, continuous ex- 
tension, 'Hhe limit of the surrounding body in respect to that 
which it surrounds." Hence Aristotle's space is finite, limited 
by the limits of the world, and conversely it becomes absurd 
to speak of a space outside of the world, or empty space. 
Aristotle, in other words, confused space with the geometric 
qualities of things. 

In recent times, Kant's arguments for the ideality of space 
have in the main been taken for granted. It ought to be said, 
however, that Kant does not regard space as an individual illu- 
sion. It has validity for our social experience, though it can- 
not be said to correspond to any metaphysical reality. Kant 
even intimates that for a higher being with a unique power of 
intuition, space would be irrelevant. Kant's own space 
concept is not at all clear. He seems to waver between the 
Newtonian conception of space as a neutral continuimi and the 
Leibnizian conception of space as a geometric system of rela- 
tions; and this makes his arguments against space far from 
clear. These may be stated as of two types. His argument in 
the Transcendental ^Esthetic of the " Critique of Pure Reason " 



246 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

is to the effect that space is ideal or phenomenal because it is 
a priori. The space form, with its implications, is innate in 
our mental constitution, and a condition for our perceiving an 
external world at all. There is, as we have seen, an element 
of truth in this. Certain space coordinations have been forced 
upon the organism in its adjustment to the environment through 
the evolutionary process. On these coordinations are based 
the intuitions which play so important a part in Euclidean 
geometry. But so far from such innateness proving space 
ideal, it would seem to be a strong presumption for the reality 
of our space world. And it seems to stand the test of scientific 
as well as practical adjustment, when the crude intuitions 
are criticized and verified, as all our intuitions of reality must 
be. 

The other type of argument is implied in the First Antinomy, 
and is based upon the principle of contradiction. Kant holds 
that if we try to conceive a world in real space, we land in an 
antinomy. The thesis of this antinomy is that the world in 
space must be finite, since we cannot, through any succession 
of acts, synthesize an infinite manifold. This objection has 
lost its force with the modern conception of infinite series. The 
criterion of an infinite series is not that we cannot reach the 
last term in our successive acts of counting, but that there are 
collections whose constitution is such that a part of the collec- 
tion can be put in a one-to-one correspondence with the whole. 
This obviously cannot be ascertained by successive steps of 
ordering, but must be proved by an examination of the postu- 
lates which underlie the particular type of collection. The 
number series, among others, is such that any part can be put 
in a one-to-one correspondence with the whole. We may re- 
gard Kant's thesis, therefore, as obsolete. To quote Bertrand 
Russell : "Owing to the labors of the mathematicians, notably 
George Cantor, it has appeared that the impossibility of in- 
finite collections was a mistake. They are not, in fact, self- 
contradictory, but only contradictory of certain rather obstinate 
mental prejudices. Hence the reasons for regarding space and 
time as unreal have become inoperative, and one of the great 
sources of metaphysical constructions is dried up." ^ 

» "The Problems of Philosophy," p. 229. 



THE NATURE OF REAL SPACE 247 

The antithesis of Kant's antinomy is to the effect that the 
world must be infinite in space since otherwise the world would 
be related to pure space, which for Kant is nothing at all. This 
objection is equally irrelevant. Whether the world in space 
is finite or infinite, it could hold together by its own energy 
relations. An example of this is the gravitational system which 
is held together, not by the attraction of space, but by the 
attraction of masses upon each other where space figures as 
distance, and so makes a real difference within the system. A 
world finite in space does indeed raise problems, though not 
the logical one of inconceivability. We have already spoken 
of Arrhenius' problem of the dissipation of energy into empty 
space, without compensation, in such a world. But that is a 
problem of another kind from that raised by Kant, and im- 
plies the reality of space. 

Finally, absolute idealism has tried to rule out the existence 
of space by conceiving reality as, in the last analysis, a logical 
system. Now we would agree that in a purely logical system, 
real space can have no relevancy. We would also agree that 
logical systems must be taken account of as real aspects of our 
world. The universe lends itself to logical categories. We 
can formulate the facts of our world into significant systems 
of relations. But we must deny that logical systems are the 
only systems of our real world. However important in the field 
of description, they are abstractions from the movement and 
variety of the concrete world of fiux. In fact, it is because 
they are abstractions that they are useful in the economy of 
life. The real unit of reaHty, we have found, is an energy 
system; and in this real space figures as an indispensable 
condition. This is true, not only in the world of physical 
things, but in the world of personal relations as well. And these 
must be taken, even by absolute ideahsm, as final realities, if it 
is to have any reality at all. 



PART IV 
TIME AND REALITY 



CHAPTER XIV 
The Nature of Time 

The Timeless ^ 

In order to understand better the function which time fills 
in experience, we shall begin by abstracting from time and by- 
regarding reaUty as a timeless system of truth. Such a world 
is of course for us as time-subjects a mere hypothetical suppo- 
sition. All we can do is to abstract from our time-experience 
as we have it, and conceive it as it would be with time elimin- 
ated, given for the time being our distinctions as arisen by 
virtue of the time-process. 

Such a world would be a world of abstract dialectic, such 
indeed as McTaggart conceives the HegeHan world to be; a 
dialectic silent as the dance of the deaf; a dialectic without 
movement or variation of attention, for ideal motion, Trende- 
lenburg to the contrary, is a contradiction in terms ; a timeless 
viewing, where all the stages or ideal moments exist for con- 
sciousness at once, and have their fixed setting in an ideal 
scheme, where reality is included and exhausted in one self- 
complete and infinite definition, the Ide, the Absolute. 

If we have recovered our breath, after speaking such magic 
and potent words, let us see what place certain categories would 
have in such a world. The concepts that would have to be re- 
translated especially in such a world are the dynamic concepts. 
Take for example the concept of motion. Just think of defin- 
ing motion as an infinite number of intermediary positions ex- 
isting at once for a subject. While you may thus shirk Zeno's 
problem as to where a body is when it passes from one position 
to another, or how positions can be made continuous, by 
denying any passing whatsoever, you raise a still more serious 

1 This section is borrowed in the main from "Time and Reality," pp. 60-63. 

251 



252 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

problem as to how a body can be in an infinite number of po- 
sitions at once. In other words, such concepts as motion 
or change would be meaningless in such a world. 

Causahty in such a world would have to be translated into 
terms of sufficient reason or logical system. Cause and effect 
would be identical and both terms would have to be dropped 
out of our vocabulary as superfluous. 

Attention in such a world could be merely the convergence 
of an ideal system and would have to be expressed in terms of 
significance. It would be the complete meaning or the con- 
sciousness of the whole of itself. Variation of attention would 
of course have to be ruled out. That the qualitative dis- 
crimination, assumed in such a world, presupposes variation 
of attention and, therefore, time is ignored by the advocates of 
the static view. We, the abstracting time-subjects, have 
these contents present to us, and, therefore, can make a time- 
less synthesis of them. 

Activity in such a world we should have to translate, as 
Spinoza does, into adequate ideas or complete logical definition. 
Possibility or impossibility would be mere logical abstractions 
and meaningless, where there can be no creation out of a con- 
tingent future. 

Past and future in such a world would become mere attitudes 
on the part of a willing subject. But the meaning has dropped 
out of both of them, they are mere words, '' sounding brass and 
tinkling cymbal." What could the attitudes of pastness and 
expectancy mean, where nothing happens? 

Non-being in such a world could only mean that one fact or 
form of being is not another, and the assertion of identity could 
hardly be made when no question or doubt is possible. It is 
the seeming flux of things that makes us demand identity. To 
be honest at all in such a world we should have to eliminate at 
least a good deal of our vocabulary and the corresponding 
concepts and judgments. 

When, however, we keep in mind that the icy grandeur of 
this static fabric is the result of our own abstraction and ideal 
construction, there can be no danger of being led astray. It is, 
on the contrary, altogether proper to try the logical experiment 
of elimination, for the purpose of discovering the value and 



THE NATURE OF TIME 253 

interrelation of our concepts. Abstracting certain concepts from 
concrete experience only keeps them in abeyance (aufhehen), 
it does not destroy them. We have all the while in the back- 
ground the inner wealth of concrete meaning, which gives 
value to our abstractions. 

If, however, we take our timeless construction seriously, if 
we hypostatize it into a world, as so many philosophers have 
done, we shall land in hopeless contradictions. In a really 
timeless world, in a world of no activity and no process, there 
would not only be no dynamic judgments, but no judgments at 
all. As far as we know at any rate, the arising and develop- 
ment of consciousness would be impossible except for the ever 
present necessity of adjustment on the part of the organism to 
a complex and changing environment, in order to realize its 
needs. Concepts are developed as tools by means of which 
we may be able to seize upon the relatively permanent in the 
fleeting changes of things and thus anticipate the future. The 
psychic content becomes detached from the perception, because 
the perception has disappeared, and the psychic content thus 
torn loose becomes symbolic, for the reflective subject, of all 
similar situations. Without time-process, therefore, we should 
have no meaning, no judgments ; we should have simply the 
glassy stare of the mystic One, which again is nothing except 
for our choosing to posit it. 

All description must indeed be abstract and timeless. Such 
description is necessary for the highest possible coordination 
and adjustment. Without description, social cooperation would 
be well nigh impossible. There are two dangers, however, 
that we must guard against. 

One danger is that of being satisfied with an incomplete and 
provisional description. While description is not reality, it 
should furnish us with symbolic equivalents for reality. The 
timeless description has made absurd the facts it was invented 
to make intelligible. But a description which lands us in 
hopeless contradictions is obviously a failure. We must look 
again for the elements which we have missed. We must have 
faith that the universe is amenable, at least, to consistency; 
and seeming contradiction must be a challenge to us to revise 
and complete our ideal network of symbols. 



254 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

A second danger lies in the tendency to hypostatize our de- 
scription as reality. This has been the danger alike of ideaUsm 
and realism in the past. Democritus hypostatized his hypo- 
thetical atoms, and Herbart his qualities, no less than Plato his 
impersonal ideas and Hegel his Absolute. We must not forget 
that reality at heart is individual and that, however far we may 
carry our conceptual analysis and synthesis, it can never ex- 
haust the " acknowledgment " of unitary wholes which only will 
and appreciation can create for us. This individual core of 
being must always remain a limit toward which description ap- 
proximates, but which it does not reach. The conceptual func- 
tion, in other words, must regard itself as the instrument by 
means of which the wilUng and appreciative self strives to be- 
come conscious of itself and to reaUze itself. It is not an end 
in itself. 

The real is the finite, the fleeting and perishable, the per- 
manent is the abstract and symbolic. 

This is but his shadow, 
His substance is not here, 

may be said of all our ideal abstractions. This means a reversal 
of the ideaUstic emphasis from Plato down. Instead of 

Alles Vergangliche 
1st nur ei Gleichniss, 

I would say that the eternal or conceptual is only a poor copy 
or symbol of real life. 

Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, 
Und griin des Lebens goldner Baum. 

With this introduction it devolves upon us now to seek for 
the missing element, which may free our above description 
of reality from its contradictoriness. If we cannot eliminate 
time, what function does time play in reality? We cannot 
treat it as a mere illusion, for illusions, too, must be explained ; 
and it is hard to see how the illusion of time and change could 
arise in a static world. Rather must we agree with Aristotle 
that motion could not originate from non-motion and so must 
have an eternal basis in the nature of things. This seems to 
be implied in the general scientific assumption that motion is 



THE NATURE OF TIME 255 

a universal property of matter, for by motion in this case 
science cannot mean the mathematical concept of motion, 
which implies space, mass, and time, but it means the fact of 
change, the real time-character of our world. 

Time and the Psychological Present 

J. S. Mill, in his " Examination of Hamilton " raises the ques- 
tion of how the past and the future can coexist in the present. 
That they do so, he regards as a fact ; but how they can do so 
he regards as an ultimate mystery. We may state the difficulty 
in the form of an antinomy : 

1. Such is the nature of time that when the present is, the 
past has been and the future is not yet. The present is a mere 
point or ideal boundary making the past continuous with the 
future, but having no duration of its own. This is the char- 
acter of time which Aristotle lays down in his "Physics." ^ 
It^ emphasizes the non-being aspect of time without making a 
clear distinction between this and the quantitative and serial 
character. This gives us the mathematical present, which is 
a mere limit or zero. 

2. But the past and future must coexist in the present, else 
how can they be contrasted in the act of judgment or mean 
past and future ? Past and future are for introspection present 
attitudes. Time therefore must be an ideal order, having its 
basis in the qualitative character of the present moment. This 
is the horn of the dilemma emphasized by metaphysical ideal- 
ism. Since our present is at best fragmentary, the total time- 
order must correspond to the qualitative content of an absolute 
mind in which all the moments of experience like a melody can 
be intuited at once. If the former attitude gave time no ex- 
tent, this attitude gives it an infinite extent; but in doing so 
it loses the fundamental character of time, ^.e. a sense of pass- 
ing, of coming and going. 

The concept of the psychological or "specious" present has 
been proposed as a compromise between the attitudes already 
stated. On the one hand, the present, according to this view, 
is not a mere zero or ideal limit. The past and future are our 
attitudes to the waning and rising processes which really do 

1 Aristotle, "Physics," Book IV, Section 10. 



256 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

coexist in the stream of consciousness. The present has a cer- 
tain extent of duration within which the passing contents can 
be held together within one span or attention-moment. This 
span may vary from a fraction of a second to several seconds 
in its extent, depending upon the conditions which obtain. At 
any rate, the psychological present is a complex affair. In the 
words of Robert MacDougall : ''The whole group of elements 
constituting the rhythmic unit is present to consciousness as a 
single experience; the first of its elements has never fallen 
out of consciousness before the final member appears ; and the 
awareness of intensive differences and temporal segregation is 
as immediate a fact of sensory apprehension as is the perception 
of the musical quahties of the sounds themselves." ^ 

There seem to be two factors of which we have to take ac- 
count in order to understand our psychological sense of duration. 
One factor is that of attention-strain, the other factor is that of 
the fining, or content of the intervals of succession. One can- 
not be reduced to the other, though they may have their effect 
upon each other. Our sense of duration seems to vary inde- 
pendently with each. The greater, on the one hand, the 
attention-strain, the longer seems the time. This can be illus- 
trated by any case of tedium or frustrated expectancy. On 
the other hand, the more filling, the longer seems the time. 
This is true, not only in retrospect, but it is true for our im- 
mediate sense of duration as well. It used to be thought that 
relatively empty time seemed long and that full time seemed 
short. But relatively empty time when it fills the momentary 
interest, as when one dozes away listlessly for the time being, 
seems remarkably short, while full time makes the duration 
seem only longer for being full. 

The stream of duration has been compared with the physical 
stream with its bed and its moving flow. The bed in the case 
of the psychological stream consists in the relatively stable 
contents and tendencies ; the stream is the coming and going 
of contents. The permanent background of consciousness 
consists in our impulses and tendencies, on the one hand, and the 
mass of organic sensations, usually unnoticed, on the other 
hand. The rhythm of some of the organic sensations gives 

1 Harvard Psychological Studies, Vol. I, 322. 



THE NATURE OF TIME 257 

us a more or less constant measure of immediate duration. It 
has been shown that visceral ancesthesia produces a lack of sense 
of duration, while the undisturbed constancy of our organic 
rhythms in passive attention gives us the original of Newton's 
uniform flow of time. Again, the rhythm of the perceived 
content makes a difference: ''When a series of stimulations 
(auditory for example) runs off without any decided rhythm 
of grouping, the specious present maintains an approximately 
fixed length, or, at least, the variations in its length have no 
functional relation to the series of stimulations in question." ^ 
With rhythmic stimulations, however, the pace of duration 
may be shortened or lengthened ; the immediate span can be 
made to contract or expand in sympathy with the rhythm of 
the stimulus. It has been shown experimentally that nerve 
currents respond to physical rhythms up to about five hundred 
pulses per second. 

Certain contents or tendencies may persist through an in- 
definite number of these briefer spans and thus mark off our 
sense of duration into longer periods or time- wholes. These 
tendencies may be primary, as where, on the perceptual level, 
certain impulses or instincts, like hunger or the migration 
instinct, persist and so mark off rhythmic periods. On the 
ideational level certain ideas or purposes endure through 
the moving scenes of perception and imagery, emphasizing and 
selecting the relevant contents, until brought to a consciousness 
of completeness. Beyond this immediate sense of duration, 
however, our serial location depends mostly on indirect con«= 
siderations, such as the association of our flow of experience 
with the artificial chronological units. We cannot rely on 
vividness as the sole criterion of distance from the present. 
Even in individual history some events far removed, such as 
childhood experiences, may be more vivid than those that have 
recently transpired. 

The account of the specious present, as we have tried to 
give it, is merely a statement of our consciousness of duration ; 
it does not explain it. What the specious present means in 
terms of content is that a certain context of content or tendency 
remains practically c6nstant, while other contents come and 

1 Dunlap, The Jour. Phil. Psych, and Sci. Meth., Vol. VIII, p. 348. 



258 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

go. This may be a matter of seconds or of years in accordance 
with the identity of interest which spans the interval. Patho- 
logically we see it in the persistent idea. Normally we have 
it most clearly in the reahzation of purpose, where a nuclear 
content furnishes the permanent leading throughout the pro- 
cess of realization. The so called time-whole is the stream of 
tendency controlled and bounded by a purpose, such as the 
drama, college Ufe, etc. In ordinary passive Hfe, even when 
our minds are most vacant of content, there is, on the one hand, 
the background or stable nucleus of the organic sensations ; on 
the other hand, certain motor rhythms of strain and release 
mark off the stream and help to constitute the sense of the 
specious present. 

This sense of duration or stabihty of certain contents in the 
stream of change, so far from being identical with time, as some 
have maintained, is its antipodes — the eternity aspect of ex- 
perience. The time character is bound up with the coming 
and going, with the passing and novelty of the process. Thus 
in every moment of experience, the eternity aspect of constant 
and cumulative content is present together with the time as- 
pect of fleetingness ; and it is on the background of this Umited 
eternity-consciousness that we cateh the significance of time, 
as it is on the background of the dark space of night that we 
catch the significance of the fleeting and dying sparks. 

Time is the precondition of the consciousness of before and 
after, as space is of the side-by-side. The consciousness of 
before and after is the simplest consciousness of time-process, 
the most immediate time relation. But it is not time any more 
than the minimum extensible is space. Rather time is the con- 
dition which makes possible the consciousness of before and 
after, of the sense of passing as opposed to simultaneity. Upon 
this consciousness of before and after we build our artificial 
framework of chronological systems, infinitely outstripping 
the brief immediate span of a few seconds but none the less 
deriving their content from it. 

Having stated briefly the psychological aspect of the specious 
present, we must say a few words about its metaphysical im- 
port. What is the character of this changing process which 
we thus immediately intuit ? Is it continuous or is it discrete ? 



THE NATURE OF TIME 259 

Is there one general flow of duration made up of infinitesimal 
parts or is this duration essentially a discrete affair, coming in 
finite drops? 

That we have an intuition of a continuous duration is the 
opinion of Bergson. According to Bergson ^ all our ideas are 
in constant flux. In this flux, our psychological states are 
continuous and cumulative. It is only to our attention that 
they seem discontinuous and successive. It is in our im- 
mediate intuition of this psychological stream that we get the 
inwardness of reality. But by means of concepts, the intellect 
tries to piece together in the form of static pictures what psy- 
chologically and in fact is a continuous flow. It thus gives us 
a cinematographic substitute for the movement of reality. He 
contrasts time or real duration, as absolute qualitative change 
and interpenetration, with space as the image of the coexistent, 
quantitative, and divisible. All contents are continuously 
flowing, nothing remaining constant, however infinitesimal 
may be the period elasped. Our qualities are but tangents to 
the ever moving stream. They do not characterize the stream. 
What repeats itself is the spatialized image. The abstracting, 
stereotyping intellect is thus incapable by its very nature of 
taking account of reality. This can be done only by intuition, 
the immediate sense of the ceaseless flow in which the contents 
continually melt into each other as the tones blend into the 
melody. 

While Bergson, and his master Renouvier, thus assume a 
continuous flow of consciousness, with infinitesimal increments 
of altering variation as filling the intervals of duration, our or- 
dinary psychological evidence at any rate fails to verify such 
an intuition. Renouvier and Bergson have both been mis- 
led by the divisibility of quantitative intervals into assuming 
the continuous change of all our contents. This is a purely 
a priori assumption. The divisibility of the artificial units of 
time measurement has nothing to do with the change or con- 
stancy of the real contents of experience. Their constancy or 

^ See the beginning of "Creative Evolution." The strongest statement of 
Bergson's position as to time is to be found in his first book, " Time and Free Will." 
A brilliant sketch of the tempbralist development in France may be found in a 
series of articles by Professor A. O. Lovejoy in the Philosophical Review, Vol. 
XXI, under the heading, "The Problem of Time in Present French Philosophy." 



260 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

change must be ascertained empirically. That some of our 
contents are practically constant, the truth process itself im- 
pHes. Else how could we mean change? 

So far from our being able to intuit infinitesimal increments 
of change our ordinary consciousness of succession is decidedly 
limited.^ Our conscious processes, so far as we can take ac- 
count of them, come in finite drops, whatever continuity there 
may be in their physiological and physical conditions. We 
must here proceed pragmatically, following the leading of the 
evidence and not of a -priori assumptions. While Bergson has 
warned us against spatializing psychological processes, this 
seems to be what he himself has done. Having started with 
quantitative intervals, he has proceeded to apply the infini- 
tesimal calculus to the contents and to force the facts to obey 
its infinitesimal rate of change. What we must do, on the con- 
trary, is to discover, so far as we can, such change or constancy 
as there is, and then to apply our mathematical tools so far 
as may be convenient. We must take experience, as we find it, 
with its constancies and its flux. Our knowledge of either is 
far from warranting any assumption of absoluteness. To 
dogmatize about absolute flux is only to substitute another 
kind of absolute for that of the Eleatic. The former may be 
more fashionable ; but it is not necessarily any more scientific. 
Because we find some flux, we have no more reason to assume 
absolute flux than we have for assuming absolute constancy 
everywhere because we find some constancy. 

1 1 undertook an experiment on the perception of sound succession, with the 
cooperation of my friend Dr. Bruce V. Hill, a physicist, some years ago. The 
click of a telephone was used as the stimulus. As the experiment has not yet 
been published, I can here give only the preliminary results. We found that 
distinct intervals could be perceived by the practiced ear up to about iJo of a 
second, our best record being .0064 by an expert musician. After that the 
successive stimuli were discriminated from the simultaneous by the lengthened 
impulse or " rasp " of the former. Toward the upper limit of any discrimination 
at all, the successive stimuli furnished, not a longer sound, but a "thicker" 
sound ; and to one or two musical subjects there seemed to be a slight difference 
in pitch. The upper limit for any discrimination at all as between successive 
and simultaneous stimuli could by practice be made much higher than that of 
Exner (which was about zlxs second), the highest limit with us being .00144 
of a second. This, however, was not a discrimination of succession, as Exner 
supposed. And even so it is a long way from an intuition of infinitesimal 
transitions, which Bergson seems to assume. 



THE NATURE OF TIME 261 

The Temporal and the Eternal 

Some of our contents as observed in experience seem to 
overlap our ideal divisions of moments. On the other hand, 
intuition indicates that some contents are changing. Our 
quantitative intervals of duration, moreover, do not exist to 
be filled by our calculus of flux or our plenum of being. They 
are but a tool for describing the concrete process. An exam- 
ination of the specious present brings us face to face with an 
antinomy : 

1. We have the intuition of flux. Contents come and go. 
Our attitudes and meanings change. If it were not that our 
world is a world of flux, we should have no need of science or 
prediction. To try to derive this flux from a static world is 
absurd. Somewhere there must be change and variation for 
even the illusion of time to arise. 

2." But we also have the intuition of constancy. We do 
recognize contents as the same. We are able in a measure to 
predict the course of process. Were there no constancy, we 
should have no concepts, no science. We should neither recog- 
nize our original experiences nor the pictures of our original 
experiences. We should not be able to mean change or any- 
thing else, for meaning implies the selection and persistence of 
certain abstract contents, in terms of which the concrete 
situations can be defined. 

The dogmatic temporalist and the dogmatic eternalist thus 
come to a draw, if not to blows. Each rests his case on intui- 
tion and conviction. And intuition verifies each and belies 
each in turn. If the dogmatic eternalist insists that only the 
intuition of substance can be trusted and that change is an 
illusion and inconceivable, the dogmatic temporalist naturally 
retorts that it is only the intuition of change that can be trusted 
and that constancy is somehow an artificial affair. Nor is the 
situation altered by substituting for the world of the naked 
senses, the world of the microscope. The values are different 
to be sure, but they still furnish our intuition with the same 
antinomy of change and constancy. If they didn't, we should 
have no intuition at all. ' Perception as a subjective act implies 
both process and a fairly constant context. 



262 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

The only solution of the antinomy which is open to us is 
the pragmatic one. We must take both change and constancy 
at their face value. What saves us from contradiction is that 
they do not hold in the same respect. The perceptual context 
perhaps changes, while the memory context remains practically 
constant. The meaning is still the same, though the parch- 
ment has faded. Or part of the perceptual context is con- 
stant, while part changes. The outline of the leaves and their 
spatial context is the same, though they have assumed their 
gorgeous autumn hues. 

In our world at any rate the thirst of the will for novelty is 
abundantly satisfied, but there is also an opportunity to realize 
the demand for loyalty. We must take each from our finite 
point of view. What is novelty to the child in its learning pro- 
cess — the art of reading and writing. Mother Goose, the mul- 
tiplication table — is from the point of view of the maturer 
person part of the world's constant stock in trade; only the 
individual value, to the beginner, is here novel. From the point 
of view of a still superior experience the content which is novel 
to us may be as old as the world, and what we take for con- 
stant may make the angels stand back and wonder. In the 
meantime we must evaluate the world from our finite point of 
view. 

In general what is most liable to change is the concrete, 
and what we find to be most constant is the abstract. Some- 
how, in the midst of the stream of concrete flow, certain forms 
and qualities seem to persist. In all the variety of our thinking 
the same fundamental laws hold good, and so we can have social 
vahdity. In the midst of the endless variety of chemical 
compounds with their unique individuaUty, certain qualities 
or elements can be analyzed out, and so we can have description 
and prediction. In the midst of the changes and chances of 
history, certain fundamental motifs seem to be present, and so 
we can read history at least backward and utilize the experi- 
ence of the past in present emergencies. However much, 
therefore, the concrete contexts of reality change, the abstract 
ratios and laws seem to hold within the observed conditions of 
the flux. For new conditions, fresh observations and general- 
izations must be made. He who enters the temple of truth 



THE NATURE OF TIME 263 

must leave his dogmatic absolutes in the outer court, though 
temperamental bias will always make this difficult. 

One thing seems clear, whoever acknowledges time and pro- 
cess to be real must be an empiricist. He must recognize 
that, if time is real, it may creep into all our generalizations, 
including our theory of time itself. And while time cannot 
''fall on its other" and annihilate itself, it is likely to annihilate 
many of those prejudices which we now mistake for truth. We 
must take our truths for their practical value for the time being, 
with due tolerance for other points of view. 

Instead of making time have the whole thickness of reality, 
as Bergson does, and insist that all our contents must flow ab- 
solutely or accumulate absolutely, I have taken time as a very 
thin concept. Time is not the whole of reality but an inde- 
pendent variable or attribute of reality. But if time is an 
independent variable, so is stuff, too, an independent variable. 
Various ensembles change unequally because of their own in- 
herent character and organization. And some characters and 
relations there may be which, while they exist in the flow, still 
remain independent of it. Certain logical and spatial relations 
seem to be thus independent. The formula, 2 plus 2 equals 
4, once discovered seems to be timeless. The secret of inde- 
pendence from change lies, in any case, in the isolation or ab- 
straction of certain parts from the concrete stream of individual 
history. This may hold for concrete parts as well as formal as- 
pects. Water imbedded in certain crystals and isolated for 
the time being from the other energies of nature may remain 
essentially unchanged in quantity as well as quality for thou- 
sands of years. The will, embodied in certain artificial vehicles 
such as the instruments of language or of marble and thus 
taken out of the individual stream, retains its own individuality 
unaltered, through the flux of ages. How far anything remains 
finally eternal can only be made clear in the historic realization 
of human purposes. 

In such a world the processes of reality will change con- 
tinuously or discontinuously according to the complexity of its 
plural structure. We cannot deduce from the mere concept 
of time which they will do. Nor can we deduce from the mere 
concept of time, as Bergson does, that the process must be 



264 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

absolutely cumulative, so that each moment like a rolling 
snowball owns all that went before. Our finite practical ex- 
perience does not seem to carry out this assumption. Is old 
age the cumulative net result of childhood with its plasticity; 
youth with its enthusiasm; manhood with its vigorous pur- 
poses ? Our finite life is leaky somehow. It is more like a net 
than a snowball. Some of it is cumulated, but the meshes get 
loose and break afterwhile and life's contents ooze through. 
The permanent part is the Karma, the net result of tendency. 

As we float in the sea of change, whether in mystic acquies- 
cence or struggling in practical earnestness with its forces, some 
constancies are indeed recognized, enabling us to hold our heads 
above the stream and to satisfy our need for prevision or thought. 
We must not forget, however, that these constancies are only 
relevant to a universe of process. And the fluency of this 
process, not its constancy or measure, is what I understand by 
time. If we must recognize reality as having such a flowing, 
passing, novel constitution; if we must orient ourselves to 
our world in such a way in order to realize the purposes of life, 
then such it is. And our conceptualizing faculty, instead of 
demurring and saying it cannot be, must accommodate itself 
to the facts. It must recognize that it is in just such a world 
that it has its peculiar function of leading. 

The Pragmatic Character of Time 

Whether we regard space as subjective or objective, we all 
agree now that space must be such as to make no difference to 
the character of things in space. It enables us to spread 
these out, and herein lies its convenience, but it makes no 
intrinsic difference to the facts thus spread out. Free mo- 
bility is one of the few axioms that critical geometry has left 
standing. Logically, therefore, we can easily abstract from 
space. But not so with time. Whatever theory we may hold 
as regards time, it must be admitted that time alters our con- 
tents, making an intrinsic and not merely an external difference. 
So far from the axiom of free mobility being applicable to time, 
reality, in so far as time pertains to it, is by all agreed to be 
irreversible. Contents become less vivid and distinct, assume 
different values and, above all, bear a different functional re- 



THE NATURE OF TIME 265 

lation to the present subject. This has made even those who 
with Kant regard time as subjective speak of it as an irrever- 
sible series, though irreversible is applicable only to process, 
not to series. How a subjective form can be irreversible passes 
understanding. 

Leaving out all dialectic subtleties, let us try to define the 
fundamental character of time. The difficulties besetting one's 
path on such a quest are due in part to the confused character 
of the concept as we find it in common-sense thinking, but still 
more to the idols of the philosophic tribe. From Zeno down to 
Bradley it has been taken for granted that time is serial in 
nature, and the arguments for and against its reality have 
always implied this serial character. Assuming time as an 
order series, Kant was the first one to show that time must be 
ideal. That he also regarded it as irreversible and as a condition 
of moral activity does more credit to his insight than to his 
consistency. Since Kant, idealism, using the Kantian weapons, 
has made short work of a real serial time. I agree entirely 
with the Kantians that if time is serial it must be regarded as 
an ideal construction. But I also hold that philosophy has 
emphasized the wrong aspect of the somewhat ambiguous 
common-sense concept. The flying, fleeting, evanescent char- 
acter of experience, it seems to me, is the primary character of 
time. The serial character is secondary, and is the result of 
a "posteriori construction, necessitated by the real time char- 
acter. We construct past and future because our contents 
have the time character, because they are forever going and 
coming ; contents do not come and go, arise and fade, because 
of our series. 

To define what time is we must discover the differentia of 
time. We must get over our intellectual slovenliness in simply 
dumping things together. This is especially true of time. We 
have been too prone to be satisfied when we have reduced it to 
one dimension of space, to number, to quantity, to causality, 
to will, and what not, if, indeed, we have gotten beyond identi- 
fying it with the stream of consciousness as a whole. No doubt 
the time concept has important relations to all of these concepts. 
But these relations are obscured by the neglect of differences 
which fail to give the time concept any assignable significance. 



266 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

Such obscurity makes time as a logical tool for describing ex- 
perience worse than useless. If the time concept makes no 
difference to experience, let us drop it out altogether. Using 
the pragmatic test, then, let us see what difference time makes 
to experience. 

Do you say that time is a series? Then by what mark or 
quale is time as a series differentiated from all other series con- 
cepts? To illustrate by another concept, more familiar: 
If you say, for example, that geometric space is a complex of 
series, you have at most mentioned only the genus. This 
would not differentiate it from color and taste series. If you 
say with Riemann that it is a manifold, you have again fur- 
nished only a large genus. Obviously what differentiates 
geometric space as series from the other series or group concepts 
is that it is an ideal construction of extensive data or is an ex- 
tensive manifold. Extensity is thus the character that dif- 
ferentiates space series from other concepts of the kind referred 
to. If we now return to time as serial, we must here, too, dis- 
cover precisely what difference it makes as a concept, what 
marks it as distinct from other series concepts. The answer 
you get when you ask : What sort of a series is a time series ? 
is something hke the answer of a friend when you ask him : 
When are you going to Chicago ? and he replies : Who says I 
am going to Chicago? Or the answer in algebra to the ques- 
tion : What positive quantity results from adding 4 and — 8 ? 
and you get the answer — 4. The answer here shows that the 
question involved a wrong presumption. So with the answer 
to the question : What are the differentia of a time series ? 
The answer is : A time series is a series in which contents keep 
passing out and coming in and in which no position can be de- 
fined with reference to any other position, because every po- 
sition is shifting in value with reference to every other. In 
so far, in other words, as you want to have a series with definite 
positions, in so far you must ignore the time character of ex- 
perience. In so far, again, as you let in time, your serial con- 
struction fails to define. The answer to the question : What 
sort of a series is time? seems to be that time cannot be ex- 
pressed as series at all. 

We have said that the test of the nature of time must be 



THE NATURE OF TIME 267 

the difference it makes to experience. The term experience, 
however, must be narrowed down for logical purposes. There 
are several types of experience and reflective experience is only 
one of these, no more real than the others. But what we are 
concerned with here is reflective or judging experience. The 
question is : What difference does time make to our judging 
experience and to other forms as reported to this? Evidently 
time bears a peculiar relation to the law of contradiction. The 
law of contradiction is only applicable, as a matter of fact, 
if you exclude time. The law of contradiction says that dif- 
ferent judgments cannot be made with reference to the same 
point in our space system and in the same respect. But that 
an object can be white and, where it is white, be not- white; 
that a thing can both be and not be in the same place — are 
matters of everyday experience. A theory of a timeless uni- 
verse would break down under its own contradictions. Time, 
then', is that aspect of experience which makes it both possible 
and necessary to make different judgments with reference to 
the same point in reality and with reference to the same at- 
tribute or within the same universe of discourse, i.e. to judge 
that reahty is both white and not-white, warm and not-warm 
with reference to the same point in space. Here the law of 
contradiction is not violated. It simply finds a new dimension 
by means of which incompatible judgments can refer to the 
same objects, without proving destructive. 

The so-called law of universality proves equally an abstrac- 
tion. Once true always true could only hold in a timeless 
imiverse or by abstracting from time. Experience shows 
too clearly that neither facts nor meanings have absolute sta- 
bihty. All that our world seems to yield is such relative uni- 
versality and uniformity as enables us to come in a fair way 
toward agreement and to anticipate for practical ends the pro- 
cesses of nature. Thus the relative and instrumental nature 
of knowledge becomes evident. 

What I have tried to show is that time does make a difference, 
and that the difference it makes is that we must revise our 
judgments or make new judgments in order to meet the re- 
quirements of experience. If time made no difference, if ex- 
perience could be described as well without it, then we should 



268 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

have one eternal moment of reality with a timeless scale of 
values. Once seeming true would be always seeming true in 
such a world. 

Time may be spoken of as a non-being character. That does 
not mean that time is unreal. What time does is something 
positive. It is responsible for passing away and novelty; it 
creeps into the intended reality and so makes necessary new 
judgments. What I mean by placing it under the category of 
non-being is, that it is not a thing or energy, though it makes 
positive differences to the world of energy. Could we state 
reality through and through in terms of quantitative determi- 
nations, in terms of constancies and repetitions, we should have 
no use for time. Our judgments as regards the factual char- 
acter of the world, if once true, would not need to be revised. 

Time bears a different relation to knowledge from that of the 
stuff character of reaUty. The stuff contents of experience, 
whether individuals, qualities, or relations, have a place within 
experience ; they are particular and can be set off from other 
contents, or pointed to. Blue is not only describable as dif- 
ferent from other contents or like other contents, but can be 
indicated as a particular blue fact as well. Not so with time. 
Time is known only through its other. If we say fleeting or 
passing we must think of fleeting values, not of fleeting time. 
It is the instability of our facts and values that makes us sus- 
pect the presence of the time character. The evidence for it 
is thus altogether indirect, i.e. in the difference it makes to 
our meanings. To try to point to the time character, as we 
point to blue or red, would be Uke the schoolmaster's saying : 
"I see some boys that are not here." 

Time knows no proximate genus under which it can be sub- 
sumed. The only universe of discourse that can be framed for 
it is reality or the process of experience as dichotomized, on the 
one hand, into being, — the world of positive facts and values, 
which can be held apart from their context, indicated or pointed 
to as well as described in terms of their other, — and, on the 
other hand, into the negation of being, the transmutation of 
facts and values. In the process of experience being and time 
are thus inseparably locked into one Hegelian, Kilkenny-cat 
embrace. This ought to satisfy even the most voracious He- 



THE NATURE OF TIME 269 

gelian appetite for opposition. But there is nothing mystical 
about the time character. To thus negate our meanings, to 
make our judgments false and so to make new judgments neces- 
sary is precisely its character. I have spoken of time as non- 
being, not because I regard it as unreal, but because it negates 
that which is. If we were to find a cold, logical equivalent for 
the warm transitiveness of our immediate experience we should 
be obliged to call it the non-identity-of-what-is character. That 
is a very cumbersome adjective, but that is what it does. 

Accounting for transmutation as due to the time character 
may be regarded as a lazy way of getting rid of the responsi- 
bility of describing the changes or sequences in our experience. 
Not so. Transmutation in general does not account for any 
particular transmutation. The fact that physics has assumed 
motion as a universal property of bodies has not saved it from 
the responsibility of investigating the laws of motion and de- 
scribing the particular sequences. That time is a property of 
reality simply means that facts are unstable; but how facts 
shall be transmuted, the quality and rate of transmutation, 
must be explained by their own structure and their place 
within the system of facts. The concept of change in general 
stands in the same relation to the particular changes that the 
demand for law in general stands to the particular laws or 
connections. 

The time character must be defined as absolute negation in 
order to differentiate it from the negative judgment as ordi- 
narily employed. The latter has reference to contrasting being 
with being. The time character does not have to do with the 
fact that there are coexisting differences or that we must now 
make different judgments in regard to reality. Rather the 
time character has to do with difference that creeps in at the 
same point. It is a property of all concrete reality ; not only 
an attribute of reflective experience, but of reality whether it 
is reflective or a lower grade, even when, perhaps, in its own right 
it cannot be characterized as experience. It makes such a 
difference to reality for us that we must make different judg- 
ments of what would otherwise be the same. By absolute, 
therefore, is simply meant that time is a real property of our 
experience- world, subjective and objective, and not a deriva- 



270 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

tive of being in any fonii, as the Hegelians would have it. It 
cannot be deduced by any a priori dialectic, but is forced upon 
our will in trying to meet its world. It is irreducible as red 
and sweet are irreducible qualities of experience; but, while 
these are specific contents which can be marked off and indi- 
cated, the time character is a generic adjective, a universal 
attribute of reality. It is the seed of instability that must be 
conceived, not to account for any particular motion, change, 
or variation, but for motion or change at all. The particular 
transmutations or changes must be accounted for by the char- 
acter of the existing system of being, given this all-pervasive 
property of time. 

I have tried thus to give the concept of time a very specific 
and technical meaning in our logic of experience. Not that I 
have been arbitrary in this. On the contrary, I have tried to 
unravel the character which time has in the common conscious- 
ness of man, confused though that consciousness may be. It is 
also the character which we need in order to make our descrip- 
tion of experience consistent and complete. We can thus pro- 
duce conceptual continuity and flow in the previously static 
and discontinuous categories of our logic — thus make the wheels 
of experience go round in thought as they do in fact. While 
our logical system can in no wise be a substitute for the warm 
and concrete process of experience, it ought to furnish a com- 
plete symbolism for concrete experience. 

I have two quarrels with idealistic theories so far. One is 
that even though reality for us must be thought of as experi- 
enced yet all experience is not reflective, and cannot therefore 
be reduced to the conceptual type. Concepts, in relation to 
a large part of experience, retain an instrumental or tool char- 
acter. They are, with reference to non-reflective experience, 
merely symbolic equivalents in the service of the willing, pur- 
posive moment. But my other quarrel is that the ontological 
conceptuaUsts have failed to make their conceptual scheme ex- 
haustive. Hegelian dialectic at best keeps jumping on one 
leg in its attempt at a static scheme of reality. Its non-being 
is not differentiated from being. But we need the negative 
concept as well as the positive. The relativity of meanings is 
as obvious a fact as that we have meanings. This relativity 



THE NATURE OF TIME 271 

of transmutation cannot be exhausted dialectically within the 
impHcations of one eternal system, but is the character of 
experience as ascertained a posteriori through the failure of 
our meanings to express what they mean to express — the na- 
ture of a changing reality. Not one system of meanings, but 
ever new systems of meanings are required in our world. Thus 
reality as concrete out-Hegels Hegel and makes ghosts out of 
our logical absolutes. 

I know this definition of time will seem abstract to my 
intuitionalist friends; and they are right that we must not 
mistake abstractions for realities. But without abstraction 
and conceptual construction we should have no science or 
philosophy. We should live simply in the immediate moment. 
It is by the method of abstraction that we discover what differ- 
ence facts make to each other within our world. Truth, or 
conceptual analysis and construction, is the means through 
whicli the concrete will strives after greater completeness of 
insight and appreciation. It is this concrete and active self 
which constructs the past and future to symbolize its own con- 
ditions of activity as a time subject. It is this concrete self 
which is conscious of direction, because it is conscious of pur- 
pose ; to which the data and habits of the now are only a means 
toward the realization of its demands for unity and wholeness ; 
and for which, therefore, the death of the old meanings means 
the birth of new meanings better expressive of its concrete life. 
In this willing, purposive, changing ego, not in abstract sys- 
tems of categories, lies the principle of negativity through which 
experience is ever transcending the old meanings, and ever 
reconstructing itself in terms of new meanings and systems. 

There is a proper and improper use of the implicit. There 
is one type of reality in which idealistic procedure from the 
implicit to the explicit is at home, and that is in the case of pur- 
posive wholes. 1 We must take account of the various elements 
or moments in a purposive whole as indicating the next step 

1 For a lucid treatment of the implicit from the eternalist point of view, see 
an article by Professor J. E. Creighton, "The Notion of the Implicit in Logic, " 
Philosophical Review, Vol. 19, pp. 53-62. This deals with the subject from the 
retrospective point of view of the cognitive moment, not from the point of view of 
the creative process where each stage is individual, and must be recognized in 
its own right with its own categories. 



272 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

— the next note of the melody, the next act of the drama, the 
next step in the argument. Wherever facts are parts of a 
completed whole, they must be prospective; they must point 
forward, even though they do not get their definite meaning 
until they are seen in their fulfillment. There is a timeless 
identity in a purposive whole, and the meaning of the parts is 
fixed by their already determined relationships. The novelty 
here exists only from the point of view of the learning process. 
There is no real novelty in Hamlet. It is different with the 
creative process — the creation of Hamlet, the construction of 
the argument, the organic growth process. Here there are 
genuinely new steps. Here insight grows. A new individual 
context is created. To think of the chicken as timelessly im- 
plicit in the egg, which is somtimes true, is not a very palatable 
idea. In a really edible egg, they are indeed part of one cre- 
ative growth series, but they are different individuals, and 
must be taken differently. We have nothing to do here with 
a quantitative time whole. This cannot condition growth or 
reaUzation. We have to do with real time. It is with the 
reality of change that time is bound up. In the case of pro- 
cesses, which to all intents and purposes are reversible, or which 
like a purposive construction can be viewed at once, time is 
reducible to pure series, which simply means that you have 
practical timelessness. Time is not here efficacious. 

While it is through the difference which time makes to our 
purposive striving that we come to know the character of time, 
I cannot agree with Royce that time itself is ''primarily the 
form of will. And so a time sequence viewed as it really 
is, that is, as a rational being really wills it to be, is viewed as 
a sequence of novel and individual events, each expressing 
somebody's present will to do something unique, and to find its 
place in the world." ^ What about the tragedy of finding dif- 
ference where our loyalty demands sameness? Moreover, our 
wiUing of the new does not itself create it. The will at best 
projects its present desire, its present intention, into the future. 
For the novel, we must wait. This is the creative contribution 
of the time process of which we are a part, and in regard to which 
in the words of Hamlet, ''the main thing is readiness." When 

» International Journal of Ethics, April, 1910, p. 262. 



THE NATURE OF TIME 273 

this new comes, it may affect our willing, as well as the object 
willed. 

I do not see how we can be said to will what we do not now 
will or intend what we do not now intend. The new meaning, 
however minutely we may analyze the conditions of its appear- 
ance, must be looked at as a gift ; it is not taken simply out 
of the whole cloth of the old. It cannot be predicted, there- 
fore. It can be known only a posteriori. This new meaning 
can no longer owm the past except as it has been transmuted 
and Uves in the present meaning, as looked at from its point 
of view. In it is the hope of the future which can only come 
through the death of the present, "when we dead awaken." 

There is one way in which the temporal pluraUstic view has 
the advantage over the static in its relation to the will and its 
striving ; and that is in regard to promise for the future. In 
such a world mistakes are not irremediable. Errors can be 
corrected, iQusions can be set straight, evil can be overcome. 
In a timeless world the presence of wrong and perverse view- 
points at all is a standing disease which cannot be remedied. 
The timeless sin of Brahm in begetting Maya knows no logical 
redemption at any rate; and the mystical solution is at best 
a veiled way of denying the original premise and recognizing 
the value of process. The temporaUstic pluraUst can take a 
mehoristic view of the world, however long and discouraging 
may be the journey from brute to God. 

To be sure this advantage has to be paid for, Uke every ad- 
vantage in our finite world. In a temporal world there is no 
guaranty that the future, at least so far as the finite individual 
is concerned, may not be worse than the past. There is a 
tragic element in the blindness and groping in such a world, which 
the absolute world of the eternahst does not know. But this 
temporal world seems to be our world, and so we have to make 
the most of it. It is a world at least where the sincere, coura- 
geous man can count — can help to create his own futm'e. 

Time and the Judging Process 

We have seen that the character of time must be the difference 
it makes to our judging' process. It is evident, however, that 
time does not pertain to the individual act of judgment. The 



274 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

parts of the judgment are not separated in time, though it takes 
time to speak the judgment. Each judgment is a timeless 
synthesis, involving an ideal reference or interpretation, ab- 
stracted from the time process. Let us examine somewhat 
more in detail the relation of time to the process of judgment. 

Without recognizing the reality of time, the judging process 
itself would be impossible. The act of judgment presupposes 
that certain aspects have been torn loose from reality; that 
contents, more general and permanent than the rest, have been 
discriminated, and abstracted in the process of experience, and 
have become symboHc of other contents. In a static world, 
where being lies next to being in one glassy stare, distinctions 
between thought and reality could never arise. Meaning and 
object would be inseparably agglutinated, if, indeed, you could 
assume meanings at all in a world where conduct has no pro- 
spective significance. Judgments are progressive adjustments, 
which are possible only in a world where the individual is de- 
pendent for the satisfaction of his nature upon centers of reality 
beyond his own, and where, through a process of interaction, 
supposition and verification, the fittest adjustments survive, 
and make it possible for him to meet, at least approximately, 
the demands of the other centers upon him. Judgments, there- 
fore, both as regards their genesis, and as regards the testing 
of their validity, presuppose process and plurality as involved 
in the constitution of reaUty. The possibiUty of judgments 
at all presupposes negation, not negativity in general as an ab- 
stract logical category, as Bosanquet has it, but real, dynamic 
negation — transmutation as opposed to static positions within 
a system. 

Suppose, in the first place, that we start with our system of 
truth meanings. To be sure, this is an inverting of real pro- 
cedure, for such a system of relations is a way which the pur- 
posive time stream of tendency has of objectifying itself, of 
making clear its trend. But by starting with the truth system, 
we can the more easily discover its relativity, and so find the 
neglected element. Now, in thus positing the system of truth 
relations, we come up against the fact that they are often un- 
stable ; that while we intend that our meanings and values 
shall be eternal ; while we try to freeze reahty into a static mold, 



THE NATURE OF TIME 275 

it will not stay. It melts. Time creeps into our system, and 
we must revise — perpetually revise — our concrete meanings. 
The rationale of this instability, whether subjective or objective, 
iOQUSt be found in the nature of the real world. But it can only 
be made part of our system of truth a posteriori, as it falsifies 
our meanings, eternal though they intend to be. 

Secondly, many judgments or concepts, we have seen, can 
become intelligible as regards their own specific significance, 
only if we presuppose such an attribute of real non-being. Such 
concepts or attitudes as past and future are not exhausted in 
oiu" ideal spreading out of our memories and expectancies. In 
a static world, memory and expectancy would be alike mean- 
ingless. In human experience, at least, there is real vanishing 
of contents, and real novelty. Contents come into, and slip 
out from our attention field. There is a transmuting, at least 
of our context of significance, whether the real objects change 
or not. And this negation is part of reality. Not only is this 
true of the concepts which in a special way are bound up with 
the time character, but in the case of other fundamental con- 
cepts also the reality of process, with its implied negation and 
novelty, is presupposed. Thus physical continuity becomes 
unintelligible apart from process, apart from the fusing of one 
positive characteristic or position into another, as for example 
in the motion of the point in drawing a line. Positions must 
be looked upon as abstractions from a continuous process. 
Even geometrical space, the type of the coexistent and the eter- 
nal, at least in so far as it presupposes continuity, implies mo- 
tion and hence implies time. Number presupposes cumulative 
process for its significance. The number consciousness would 
be impossible in a static world. It requires the transmutation 
of our meanings, as well as retentiveness, to make counting 
possible. The formula, n + 1, cannot express the individual 
significance of the cumulative steps of number. The zero of 
subtraction in mathematics, as in x — y = 0, presupposes at 
least ideal destruction of possibilities; and so serves to sym- 
bolize the destruction of real alternatives in the choices of the 
volitional process. The concept of the infinite, again, would 
be impossible except for a thought activity which can abstract 
from its limitations and thus conceive itself, in obedience to a 



276 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

certain law or purpose, as creative of new steps, " world without 
end." 

Thirdly, the incompatibility of our judgments and attitudes 
which claim to be of the same object and by the same subject ; 
which concern reality at the same point in space and in the same 
respect, makes it necessary to suppose that reahty at the same 
point is unstable, has a history ; that our judgments vary, be- 
cause they are made concerning a different reality, or by a dif- 
ferent subject ; that, in other words, we have different strata 
of transformations of being, at the same point, necessitating 
different judgments. Whether these transformations are in 
the real subject or in the real object, does not matter. Either 
or both may be the case. In either case new judgments of 
reality are necessitated ; and we must find a way of making 
our judgments consistent, by assuming a new attribute of reality 
beside that of stuff. 

Some judgments at any rate- are relative though they claim 
to be true. This relativity, moreover, does not pertain to their 
function within their own context. We are taking for granted 
that they successfully lead to the object which they intend 
then and there. We will suppose at any rate that the Gauls 
are such and live in such places and in such social relations as 
Csesar tells us. Why, then, should his description fail to fit 
the France of to-day? Why should not once true be always 
true? How can there be legitimately conflicting truths? 
We must account for the discrepancy of judgments, made with 
reference to the same point in space and in the same respect, 
without contradiction. We can have different judgments 
coexisting in regard to different points or different aspects; 
but how can we have different judgments on top of each other, 
as it were, and claiming the same point? This can only be 
because of a certain inherent principle of diversity or non-iden- 
tity in the point so that there is transmutation of its being; 
or because a different subject is making judgments of the same 
identical point. We must introduce a non-spatial, non-stuff 
attribute, a pure dynamic principle, which shall necessitate in- 
compatible judgments with regard to reality. Whether the 
difference is regarded primarily as creeping into the real object, 
or into the real subject, in either case, it means ultimately 



THE NATURE OF TIME 277 

incompatible attitudes toward reality. All change resolves 
itself for knowledge into a change of point of view or new 
experience. 

We can define, then, the relation of time to judgment : Time 
is that attribute of the real subject-object, which makes in- 
compatible judgments (i.e. different judgments as regards the 
same aspect of reality at the same point) necessary. 

This time character of reality appears nowhere more clearly 
than in our quantitative judgments of the time process. ''Let 
us imagine a transcendental being, built upon the principles of 
the eternalist conception of reality, paying a visit to our em- 
pirical world and catching sight of a timepiece : ' Hello there,' 
he says, 'what is that?' On being told that this is an instru- 
ment to measure time with, he asks : ' Well, how much time is 
it?' He is told that it is one hour and thirty minutes. 'All 
right,' he says, 'one hour and thirty minutes.' 'No,' the ter- 
restHal being says, 'it is now one hour and thirty minutes and 
thirty seconds.' In blank astonishment our visitor replies : 
'You say it is one hour and thirty minutes, and you say it is 
one hour and thirty minutes and thirty seconds, which do you 
want me to believe?' 'No,' the terrestrial says, 'it is one hour 
and thirty-one minutes.' 'You are an incorrigible liar,' says 
the visitor. 'No,' says the terrestrial, 'look for yourself.' It is 
just one hour and thirty-two minutes.' By this time the 
language of the transcendental visitor is not such as ought to 
be heard by mortal man, and so we must close the interview." ^ 

Such is the nature of time that no measurement of time can 
be absolute. For given any quantitative description of the 
flowing process in terms of hour, minute, and second, and the 
statement must be continually revised. If you make time a 
quantitative series, you must introduce a second series to meas- 
ure the time of the measuring process, which itself is a time 
process. But in this way, your time concept would always 
leak. You would have to refer to another standard ad infinitum ; 
you would never reach time. The judgments of time become 
infinite. An infinite number of serial perspectives are required, 
which merely means that time itself is not a series, but lies in 
another dimension fronl the world of description, yet condi- 

^ Quoted from "Time and Reality, " pp. 23 and 24. 



278 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

tions that world and furnishes the rationale of our attempts 
at serial construction. The reality of time is thus forced upon 
us by this instability of the universe, including the universe 
of truth. Change could not be produced, as modern science 
seems to imply, by the mere juxtaposition of static entities or 
substances. We need a negative property, as well as positive 
properties, to make change possible. We depend indeed upon 
the nature processes to do the work, we can merely arrange the 
conditions. But we must not suppose that the abstract con- 
ditions, which, taken alone, would remain eternal fixtures, 
exhaust the nature of process. 

The question might still arise whether this conception of 
non-being should be called by the name of time, or whether 
that does not more properly belong to the Kantian concep- 
tion. To this, I would answer that the above conception is 
implied as the fundamental aspect of time, both by common 
experience and science. By time, the unsophisticated at least 
do not mean merely the measure of time or the chronological 
series, but passing units or a moving series. And the passing 
or moving is more fundamental to the conception than the 
units or the series. Should the procession of years stop, we 
all recognize that time would be no more. When we speak of 
time, it is that time flies ; time is on the wing ; time slips away ; 
time passes; time steals upon us; time creeps in, etc. The 
time concept cannot be exhausted in our static, timeless chrono- 
logical picture. We must rather recognize this picture as 
conventional. We must identify time with the going on of 
process, instead of with the conventional measure of process 
— as *' sticking in being " and making it unstable. Common 
experience is here saner than Aristotle and Kant. 

There is no other way of defining time which is not circular. 
You cannot define time and leave time out. Define time as 
the number of motion, or the measure of time, as is done by 
Plato and Augustine (who conceive time to originate with the 
solar system), and you have the circle of using as definition a 
concept already involving time, for motion requires both time 
and space, beside mass for its definition. And there is no mea- 
sure of motion, including the earth-clock, which is not relative 
to time. Identify time, again, with the order series of number, 



THE NATURE OF TIME 279 

and, beside producing confusion of names, you find that num- 
ber as successive acts, with cumulative meaning and novelty, 
already implies the time concept. The same will be true of 
any definition which treats of time as relative. 

Time, however, is not change, but the condition of change. 
It is not necessary to suppose that time itself changes, though 
it makes our values unstable, creeps into our equations. The 
chains of necessity will not hold reality within the mechanical 
construction of our three dimensional geometrical space. 
Facts slip away, and creep in, which require another dimension. 

Having once defined the real time character, we can easily 
account for the serial aspect of experience as expressed in the 
psychological series of past, present, and future. These do not, 
by their sum, constitute time. They are derivatives, on the 
contrary, ideal constructions or will-attitudes, necessitated 
by the relation of the time character of experience to the struc- 
ture ^character, and remain to the end relative. The past is 
the attitude toward the content which time has negated and 
transformed, and which therefore can no longer as such be 
acted upon ; the present is the sense of real activity, or the going 
on of process; the future is the expectancy, the prospective 
attitude toward the coming or new content, the field of real 
possibility. The irreversibility of the concrete past, on our 
theory, is not ideal merely, but is due to the real negating and 
transforming of the world of experience for which the present 
symbols stand. 

While the irreversible character of process has generally been 
conceded, it has not always been made clear in what sense 
process is irreversible. It is clear that the nature of the process 
must be taken into account in order to define its irreversibility. 
The more complexly organized a process is, the more essentially 
irreversible it will be found to be. Thus simple processes, such 
as are found in the inorganic world, are practically reversible, 
so far as our crude averages are concerned. Indeed, reversi- 
bility is a postulate of the physical sciences. There is, however, 
a hmitation even here, in that available energy is in part dissi- 
pated in every activity. There are difficulties, too, in the limi- 
tation of our control as in mending the broken china. When 
we deal with organic processes, irreversibility seems more of 



280 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

the real nature of the process. We cannot, with the means 
in our control, reverse the process from childhood to old age, 
and so death in multicellular structures at any rate remains 
for us an inevitable fact. In our social relations, there are 
various degrees of irreversibility. We may injure our friend, 
make restitution, and be forgiven. It is not true in such a 
case that the past is irrevocable in the sense that it cannot be 
altered. Not only can it be changed, but the result may even 
be heightened in value because of the correction of past errors, 
and the atonement for past mistakes. Mary Magdalene may 
be more of a saint for having been purified from seven de\'ils. 
But whether the past is transformed for better or worse, his- 
tory cannot be the same as though the past had not been. The 
past, moreover, may be in large part beyond repair, owing to 
our changing finite conditions. The friend we injured may 
be dead when we awake to repentance; and while a merciful 
humanit}' and a merciful God may give us another chance, as 
we feel that the latter will do, the objective injury so far as our 
limited view point goes, is irreparable. In any case, while the 
past is ever transformed in the course of the process — im- 
proved or deteriorated by being taken up into the context of 
the ongoing stream — the deed cannot be undone in the sense 
that it does not count. It conditions for better or worse the 
character of the transformation with its creative uniqueness. 
The advantage of the temporal view of the world is that it does 
not make us slaves of the past. New beginnings can be made. 
Melioration is possible. Not only can the future be better 
than the past, but the past itself may come to have new sig- 
nificance and value for being taken up into a more compre- 
hensive future. 

Our universe may be conceived as floating in time, as it does 
in space. But the character of time as opposed to space is to 
make a difference to contents. What difference it makes 
depends upon the organization of the contents. As there are 
relations which are extra-spatial, so there may be relations that 
are extra-temporal. It is not necessary to the belief in the 
reality of time to prove that all facts or relations must be 
subject to time. But admit time at all, in the smallest way, 
and it is impossible to reduce it to a function of a static system. 



THE NATURE OF TIME 281 

There may be truths or relations to which time is irrelevant. 
As there are certain relations, such as number relations, which 
are independent of space, so there may be certain formal re- 
lations which are independent of time. Time may be irrelevant 
to the formal relation, 2 + 2 = 4, once the relation is dis- 
covered, however much it is implied in the genesis of our judg- 
ment. Whether any truths are actually thus timeless is a 
matter for experience to show and cannot be proved a 
priori. Even the law of contradiction is hypothetical, de- 
pendent upon the permanency of our mental constitution, 
though, of course, we cannot conceive a universe, without 
presupposing it. 

Does the flow of the total time process have a definite form 
quality? Is it spiral or some other form? We cannot say by 
empirical induction. We can deal only with our piecemeal 
finite experience. History seems to indicate a sort of spiral 
periodicity of human experience; but even here the data are 
far too complex, and the span at our disposal too brief to make 
any definite generalization possible. Several independent 
variables must be taken account of in race evolution. We have 
no longer Hegel's confidence in the a priori construction of 
history. Some overlapping there is, some cumulation of mean- 
ing. Else history were in vain. But there does not seem to be 
a continuous process of development, as in the drama. New 
motives, whether due to race differences, to different traditional 
backgrounds, or to profound variations brought in by in- 
dividual genius, serve to give history a new direction, and make 
it difficult to find a standard of comparison. Whether Greek 
or Gothic architecture is superior cannot be decided by any 
conventional measuring rod. Each is uniquely satisfying 
within its own temperamental and psychological setting. 
While in the case of our practical ideals, we would seem to be 
on surer ground, we must remember that here, too, the scale of 
values varies all the way from self-assertiveness to self-renun- 
ciation ; and we can by no means be sure that our passion for 
doing things is superior to the peace which passeth under- 
standing. Without any dogmatic theory about progress, it 
behooves us to profit by the past, and, so far as we are able, 
to enter into sympathetic communion with it. 



282 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

Finally, it would be neither desirable nor possible to dis- 
sociate time completely from its secondary or phenomenal char- 
acter, the chronological series. Language has once for all 
included this, just as we speak of the setting sun even after 
the Copernican theory. The conventional aspect of time has 
its convenience and relative truth, too. 



CHAPTER XV 

Time and the Problematic^ 

In trying to meet the problems of life and conduct, we have 
fomid that we cannot deal with reahty merely on the basis 
of our three dimensional spatial scheme of relations. We 
have meanings, somehow, which, while once truthful, cease to 
apply to the world as we find it. How shall we locate these 
perspectives of value which, though true in their own setting, 
no longer fit the perceptual world ? 

One thing is certain, we cannot take time as serial and still 
meet ^ the demands of experience. We cannot conceive of time 
as serial without making both truth and reahty impossible. 
Make time serial in character and you have this dilemma : 

1. If you assume your time series to be real, then you have 
the coexistence of an indefinite number of real, exclusive mo- 
ments claiming the same space, for each moment of time claims 
the whole of concrete perception with its dimensions. But 
reality cannot be both one and many in the same respect, hence 
reahty becomes impossible. 

2. But if the time series is regarded as ideal, then we have 
an indefinite number of descriptions or judgments, each ex- 
clusive of the other, and each referring to the same reality at the 
same point. Hence our descriptions or judgments claiming 
to be diverse, and yet of one reality, in the same respect, are 
contradictory, and truth becomes impossible. 

The only possible solution, as we have already indicated, is 
to regard time as non-serial or prior to series, and to regard 
series as a derivative construction. Time must, somehow, be 
involved as a property of the real, conditioning the whole world 
of subjective construction. 

If we take an historical illustration, the contradiction that 
confronts us is that we have many systems of ideas pretending 

Hn this chapter I have drawn freely from "Time and Reality," Chapter V. 

283 



284 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

to express the same fact. If we take Rome as our fact, we 
have many Rome systems which all assert their reality. Thus 
we have the Rome of Victor Emmanuel and the system of re- 
lations clustering about it. We have also the Rome of the 
Napoleonic era, the Rome sacked by the Vandals, the Rome 
where Caesar was assassinated, the Rome of the Gracchi, etc. 
The peculiar thing about every one of these systems is that 
they all equally assert their own reality, every one is complete 
and exclusive of the others. Actually, however, the Rome of 
Victor Emmanuel is the only one that in 1916 a.d. corresponds 
to the perceptual content Rome, or can interact with the real 
moment of living interest ; and so the others are excluded from 
existence. Furthermore, the present system of relations is 
complete, entirely apart from the other systems. The latter 
have nothing to do with international relations. They cannot 
be reached by gunpowder. They are, therefore, anomalies. 
They assert their reahty, however; unhke the mermaids and 
centaurs they are entirely in agreement with the scientific 
canons of possibility ; they really refer to the perceptual con- 
tent, Rome, but fail to fit it. They all say, w^e are Rome, but 
only one system seems to be able to command present belief. 

But the earlier systems which fail of perceptual verification 
in the now are the products of the same activity and the same 
tests as the system which now is valid. If there is no way of 
making the earUer systems consistent with the present, we must 
not only declare them false, but we must doubt the possibihty 
of ideal systematization, that is, of truth, at all. We must, 
therefore, find some means of harmonizing our conflicting or 
duplicate ideal systems, if truth is to be possible ; and if truth 
is not possible, then we must stop philosophizing. We cannot 
fall back on the absolute for truth. Truth means ideal har- 
mony for us. Ideas do not transcend themselves; they are 
our leadings and must be harmonized within our experience. 
Nor can we fall back on immediate experience when thought 
fails. We cannot say that we have intuition, which is not 
present intuition, and so intuition of pastness or futurity ; the 
contexts which symbolize the past must be intuited as figuring 
in our present experience. What shall we do then with the 
superfluous systems which have no real relations with the now ? 



TIME AND THE PROBLEMATIC 285 

It is evident that we must introduce a new factor to get over 
the contradiction. 

What we actually do in our scheme of history is to arrange 
these systems with reference to the perceptual present and af- 
firm them all true except for time. The systems are arranged 
teleologically, as nearly as we can, in an ideal series, time ac- 
counting for the conflicting reality claims. To know what the 
historic past and future are, becomes then easy, because we 
see that they are our constructions to account for experience, 
and that they have no reality except for our positing them 
as such explanations. As such, however, they point to some 
fundamental property, which must explain the present dis- 
crepancy. 

Take, again, the case of motion — of Zeno's arrow. The 
discrepancy is the same as before. We have, once more, a 
number of systems of relations which all pretend to mean or 
express the nature of the same fact. These systems are all 
exclusive of each other. At any one point in space, and at 
any one moment in time, the system of relations of the arrow 
is complete ; we have at that point and moment a whole uni- 
verse, a perfect quantitative system of relations. At another 
point we have an equally complete, but a different system to 
express the same fact — the flight of the arrow. We have, 
therefore, in so far as the movement of the arrow furnishes 
us a line which is infinitely divisible, an infinite number of pos- 
sible points and an infinite number of possible systems, all 
defining or pretending to define the same arrow. Furthermore, 
these universes coexist ideally, and all claim to be real ; none, 
however, really expresses the flight of the arrow. The ideal 
systems, in so far as they pretend to express the meaning of the 
movement, are not only all contradictory, but all false, pro- 
vided we cannot reconcile them in a new dimension. This is 
made possible by introducing time, a fact which does not as 
such appear in any system, but accounts for the possibility of 
the ideal coexistence of these systems. It is just this impos- 
sibility of getting along without time which has led some scien- 
tists, as Lagrange, to introduce it as a fourth dimension, though 
time itself is not a dimension of relations, but rather the rationale 
of a unique non-spatial dimension. 



286 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 



A New Dimension 

The past is such an ideal dimension. Our serial construction 
of chronology exists nowhere except in our way of treating the 
facts. This is equally true of the spatial scheme of dimen- 
sions. The Cartesian coordinates exist only as our conceptual 
tools. Dimensions are ways in which we find it convenient to 
symbolize relations. In each case, however, there is a factual 
basis for our ideal construction. We no more make the char- 
acter of the past, than we make our perceptual world in space, 
by taking account of it in terms of our purposes. In each case, 
we find it convenient to spread out our facts in a certain order 
in our attempt to orient ourselves to our world. We can make 
our world consistent and practically intelligible only by spread- 
ing out the past in a dimension of its own, independent of the 
world of space perception. While we may utilize spatial meta- 
phors, such as the line, in symboHzing the past, it is based upon 
another set of values from space dimensions — values of suc- 
cession and becoming, instead of coexistence and constancy. 
The dimension of the past is as much necessitated by the de- 
mands of experience as are the spatial dimensions of the present. 
In each case social agreement has abstracted from what is per- 
sonal and unique in our individual perspectives and emphasized 
those features which are relevant to common understanding 
and action. 

There are two things of which we must take account in order 
to understand the nature of the past. In the first place, the 
past has a non-being aspect, without which it could not mean 
past at all. The past world exists no longer as perceptual; 
it exists only as it has been taken up in the ongoing move- 
ment of history. The Greeks are no longer besieging Troy, 
Caesar is no longer crossing the Rubicon, though those experi- 
ences are continuous in history with events and civilizations 
now real. The question arises, however, if the past world is 
a world of non-being as contrasted with present perception, 
why should we have even the ideal construction of such a world ? 
How can we mean or refer to such a world at all ? 

This leads us to the second aspect. The reason that we can 
construct the past at all is that it involves, besides this quali- 



TIME AND THE PROBLEMATIC 287 

fication of non-being, contexts of content within the present 
that give us a basis for our past construction. The past is not 
a mere fiction. It is not for us to make history as we please. 
While the past has no independent existence of its own, it has 
a factual basis within the present which we cannot ignore. We 
reconstruct the past from present records. Perhaps I can make 
this clearer by an analogy. If we examine the geological strata, 
we find the basis within them of a certain series. There are, 
indeed, no past layers. All the strata are present strata; 
all the characteristics are now characteristics. Should the 
mountain become conscious of itself, however, it could con- 
struct a series of conditions, no longer existing, to account for its 
present character. A better illustration would be a tree. A 
tree has various layers or rings that enable us to tell something 
about the history of it. Suppose the tree should become self- 
conscious, it could construct a series of conditions to account 
for jts present state; and, if it did construct such a series 
at all, it would have to construct it in a certain way, owing to 
its present character. Yet there are no past layers or rings. 
There is only the present tree as an organic unity, suffused with 
present sap, though the old layers retain a certain individuality 
of their own in the present structure. 

So our reflective moment discovers within itself certain 
characteristics, certain survivals in the way of memory, as 
within the individual organism, or of records which are the 
survivals within the larger social processes. These make it 
possible to construct an order or series of attitudes, constituting 
history. The feeling of duration itself is a present feeling, 
however much it may help us in giving significance to the 
ideal construction of a past-series. If we choose to construct 
such a series, however, the present character of reality makes 
it necessary to recognize a certain kind of order, which has a 
real or factual basis within the present. Each successive mo- 
ment in the series must be such as to supplant, to occupy the 
space of, and to exclude the reality of each preceding moment. 

Moreover, such a construction is necessary in order to make 
the present reflective moment intelligible at all. If the birth 
and the funeral and all the intervening stages were thrown to- 
gether in one promiscuous mass, experience would be a hope- 



288 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

less chaos. The individual attitudes or meanings, with which 
history deals, are exclusive of each other, each claims the whole 
universe for its own, fills the whole of space with its three 
dimensions. The point of view of the Homeric world, with its 
gods and heroes ; the point of view of the age of Pericles with 
its art and its philosophy ; the world of Caesar with its conquests 
and its political ideals, each fills the universe with its presence, 
and does not recognize the reality of the other. In such a 
babel of tongues, a timeless view of the world would simply 
have to commit suicide by abandoning the law of contradiction 
altogether. 

The confusion can be resolved, if we regard experience as 
making itself anew, if we regard the universe as essentially cre- 
ative, at least in spots. To some extent, it accumulates past 
experience into present structure, as well as transforms present 
structure into new experience. Each moment of experience 
brings its sense of order with it, spreads its content out into 
its spatial and other ideal series. There is no inconsistency 
any longer in each point of view claiming the whole universe. 
Each individual meaning claims its universe. When the old 
meaning and its universe are taken account of by a new point 
of view in a new universe, the old point of view, in so far as it 
was valid, and the old universe which it meant, still are seen to 
fit each other, and no attempt is made to rob the old meaning 
of its universe. 

Thus the present real self, " the heir of all the ages," finds 
it convenient to look upon itself as one out of a series of universes, 
which have been retransmuted and superseded, in order to un- 
derstand its own constitution and define its own expectancies. 
This is true not only in regard to the spreading out of the past 
will-attitudes into history proper. The self also finds it con- 
venient to spread out the world below the level of experience 
into an evolutionary series in order better to understand the 
present forms of being and their characteristics ; and thus we 
have theories of biological and geological evolution and nebular 
hypotheses. Here we translate that which knows no internal 
meaning into meaning and history for our own convenience, 
on the basis of certain structural characteristics, as they exist 
for us. 



TIME AND THE PROBLEMATIC 289 

Knowledge of the Present and the Past Contrasted 

The present is the field of scientific observation and practical 
attitudes. Science deals with a now constitution of reality, 
on the basis of which we can link our facts and anticipate the 
behavior of things. To obtain such uniformities, science neces- 
sarily abstracts from the individual aspect of things, and se- 
lects out of reality the constant qualities and attitudes, con- 
venient but only part of reality. Ethics, on the other hand, 
aims to deal with reality as concrete and individual. It deals 
with the adjustment of individuals to each other in social life, 
in which alone they can realize their needs. 

There is a peculiar quality about the real relationships to 
the present social context of experience, which the symbolic 
past lacks — that of living response or reciprocity. We must 
recognize the other personal contexts, not merely as having 
their xDwn meaning, but as capable of sympathetic participation 
with us. This has been strikingly brought out by Plato in the 
"Phsedrus," where he discusses the advantages of living com- 
munication over written records. ''Writing," Socrates is made 
to say, "is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of 
the painter have the attitude of life, and yet, if you ask them 
a question, they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may 
be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intel- 
ligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question 
to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. 
And when they have once been written down, they are tossed 
about anywhere among those who do and among those who 
do not understand them. And they have no reticences or 
proprieties toward different classes of persons ; and, if they are 
unjustly assailed or abused, their parent is needed to protect 
his offspring, for they cannot protect themselves." 

What is lacking, then, in these past minds, incarnated into 
the spiritual body of language or looking at us through the 
marble or painting? A meaning of their own they evidently 
possess, which we must respect and appreciate. They express 
definite attitudes. They have a purpose of their own. They 
are the soul in an individual act, the stereotyped expression of 
an individual insight, made eternal by being isolated from the 



290 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

stream of personal history. But while taken out of their per- 
sonal history, they continue to figure as purposes and energies 
within social history. As part of the history of the social mind 
of a people, of a race or of humanity they continue to grow, 
to spread, to energize the life of the race. They retain their 
individuaUty within the great and ever-moving social consti- 
tution. What they have lost by being thus socialized and 
given an artificial body is their individual feeling of value. 
They are incapable of individual sympathy with our flesh- 
enveloped minds. 

The dialectic of the past, in other words, is a one-sided 
affair. The living speaker develops his meaning of the past to 
his own satisfaction, and that is all that can be asked. Future 
moments may find the present meaning partial and unsatis- 
factory, but the real past itself makes no emotional response, 
says neither yes nor no, offers neither resistance nor encourage- 
ment. It is plastic, so far as value is concerned, in the hands 
of the present moment, a means to a present end, and yet does 
not complain, does not stand up for its own integrity, though 
such integrity it must have to figure as a present object of knowl- 
edge. 

Not so with the individual moments, in the present social 
continuum of experience. Here you have a two-sided dialectic, 
a yes and no relation. Misconstrue the other mind and you 
fail of cooperation, fail to realize your purposes. The other 
reflective consciousness not only has a meaning, but insists 
that he means what he means, refuses to be the mere instru- 
ment to your end. If you would share his life and realize your 
own larger life, you must revise your meaning of his meaning 
so as to approximate more closely to the latter. You must 
respect his own sense of value. The more comprehensive and 
sympathetic your meaning, the greater your opportunities 
for life. Would you construe him simply in your own way, 
treat him as a mere thing, then you run up against it, you are 
slapped in the face, sometimes literally ; whether you are suc- 
cessful or unsuccessful in this external dogmatism, you forfeit 
your chances for a larger fife, you fail in the struggle. The 
only way you can succeed is by an acknowledgment of the 
demands which the other consciousness makes upon you. 



TIME AND THE PROBLEMATIC 291 

Thus in the relationship of individuals within the present 
social continuum, conscious agreements become necessary. 
Each individual, to reahze his demands, must learn to recognize 
the demands which are made upon him by other individuals. 
Only as there is a mutual recognition of such demands, do social 
institutions become possible. What beings we are forced to 
acknowledge as individuals, and the character of these indi- 
viduals for us — this depends upon the demands to which we 
must adjust ourselves, which we must recognize in order to 
realize our purposes; and the adequacy of the reaUzation of 
our purposes will depend upon the adequacy of our recognition 
of these demands. The closer the approximation of our mean- 
ing to the Hving purposes of other beings, the better we shall 
succeed in anticipating their behavior and in adjusting ourselves 
to our world. In the case of the infra-reflective nature pro- 
cesses, no acknowledgment of external meaning or value is 
necessary. To use these processes, therefore, as mere means 
calls for no protest, and the test of truth on this level is simply 
the success of such manipulation. 

That there are different individuals, however, can never be 
proved a -priori. A priori the ego never could get away from 
itseK. It would simply have to create its own non-ego out- 
right, and this would be no non-ego at all. A non-ego, which 
should exist simply as an act of our positing, would indeed be 
beautifully transparent and controllable, but it would be ab- 
solutely barren too, as far as satisfying any needs. It is only 
a posteriori, through sympathetic relations, or through our 
failure of adjustment, that we have come to recognize other 
individuals at all. It is through the a posteriori process of ideal 
construction and trial that we have learned to meet the non- 
ego in a more adequate way. 

At best, our knowledge of other individual minds is a matter 
of approximation. We can only partially hope to get the real 
significance of a meaning beyond our own. Communication 
and conceptual definition are concerned with whether we aim at 
the same objects in each other's experience. It has to do with 
the generic features of our meanings, not with identity of fringe 
as regards such objects. Functional identity is all that is 
necessary for practical relations. The important thing is not 



292 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

whether our meanings are the same, but whether they terminate 
in similar behavior. If so, our meanings may be taken as 
equivalent. 

Absolute sameness of meaning, at any one time, would mean 
absolute sameness of mental contexts or mere identity. If 
there are individual meanings at all, this will be impossible. 
And we must behave, at any rate, as if there were different in- 
dividuals. The greater the sameness of conditions, however, 
the greater the sameness of meaning. Twins, it has been shown, 
manifest a great deal of likeness as regards tastes and prefer- 
ences. But however closely aUke the organic conditions may 
be, there is a difference in subjective conditions, difference in 
emphasis, difference in initiative and choices, difference in social 
setting. 

The greater the disparity in conditions and meaning, the 
more difficult becomes the problem of agreement or common 
understanding even in the crudest ways. How difficult it is 
for us to interpret the child mind and to sympathize with its 
aims. We treat it just like a little grown person. How little 
sympathy we show with savage races and how little, if any, 
significance we attribute to their lives as shown in our treatment 
of them. Still more problematic becomes our knowledge in 
regard to animal consciousness. We are apt either to deny to 
the higher animals any significant life, or else to attribute 
to them our own consciousness. In the lowest organisms and 
in the inorganic realm, knowledge becomes a mere demand for 
external continuity and use, as far as we are concerned. 

Even in the living present, then, and where the conditions 
are most favorable, our knowledge is decidedly problematic. 
The value of our knowledge, even on the highest level of de- 
velopment, must be estimated from the point of view of con- 
venience for action and appreciation, rather than with reference 
to exhaustiveness. 

In the meantime, since reaUty is individual, and because it 
is individual is dynamic, there is an element of non-being in our 
knowledge. Our ideal construction gives a value of its own to 
reality beyond. And as the reality beyond is ever changing, 
the prospect of exhausting the surd and reducing the universe 
to the dead level of sameness is at most a dream of those phi- 



TIME AND THE PROBLEMATIC 293 

losophers, in whom the passion for identity overmasters every 
other passion. Only in a world of abstract averages could such 
a permanent instinctive adjustment, as Spencer dreams of, be 
possible, surely not in a world of unstable individual equilibri- 
ums, with the possibility always of new insight as well as the 
possibility of going wrong. Each creative act, whether new 
purpose or sin, changes the total complexion of the universe 
and involves a fresh readjustment. In a world like ours, there- 
fore, there will always be coexistent many experience moments 
with their different perspectives of history and nature, each 
with its scale of values. Sameness for us is, at best, a category 
of conceptual abstraction, to be used in so far as it may be 
convenient. Better live in a problematic and contingent world, 
however, with something to do and something to attain, than to 
suffer from the langeweile and dull monotony of a world where 
nothing happens. 

The difficulty with the past, as we have seen, is that it makes 
no living response. We are dealing there with attitudes no 
longer actively real. As to the past attitudes themselves, we 
must rely on records, but the records are merely symbolic of 
past points of view. The thought universe, within which 
they lived, is at most only a partial world to us, a stage in the 
evolution of our own experience, while to them it was the whole 
world. The mythological world, for example, which was 
reality itself to our ancestors, is a mere shadow world to us, at 
best preparatory for better things. It was a belief world to 
them, it is mere fancy to us. We do not get the past attitudes 
or meanings as such, we get them only as transmuted and 
appropriated into the historic movements that have succeeded 
them. That is their significance for us. How plastic history 
is, is evident from the difference in emphasis and interpretation 
from age to age. Each age uses history for its own ends, re- 
constructs the past for the sake of its own purposes, and in 
obedience to its own needs. The more complex the point of 
view grows, the more hopeless is any realization of the real 
meaning of the primitive attitudes. 

Sometimes there has been an attempt to regard the past 
as resolvable into mere' degrees of complexity with reference 
to the present. This, as an artificial device, may, for certain 



294 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

purposes, be justifiable. It is convenient sometimes to regard 
the mind of the savage and the baby as our own mind sim- 
pHfied. Such meaning as we get out of the universe must 
naturally, as shown before, involve such a translation into 
terms of ourselves. But the savage and the child are not mere 
compUcations of content. They are wills, in their own right, 
with their own unique value. Here lies the difficulty of un- 
derstanding them. Were they mere things, no such difficulty 
would exist. We could read their qualities in terms of other 
qualities, we could take them as mere instances of their kind. 
If you understand one piece of gold, you understand all pieces 
of gold. When it comes to wills, each will must be understood 
and appreciated as such, even though this can be done only 
in terms of our own experience. 

However different may be the practical relations of sympathy 
and interaction as between the past and the present, the method 
of knowing the past does not differ from that of understanding 
the present. In either case, the procedure must be pragmatic 
— the trying out of our hypotheses or attitudes in individual and 
social experience. In either case, the difficulty lies in the unique- 
ness of the volitional context. The fact that the two wills 
exist ages apart does not itself alter the problem. I can more 
easily understand Plato and Aristotle than the children that 
play in the yard. In any case, we must draw upon our own 
experience ; and in the case of the child, we must draw upon our 
memory so far as we can ; we must strive to make real the past 
will of our own early life. 

History must be regarded, then, as our ideal construction on 
the basis of past contexts of will as they survive in records. Its 
justification is a practical one. In appropriating the institu- 
tional or accumulated life of the race, we come to consciousness 
of ourselves, we come to understand our world, and to anticipate 
better its behavior, though the music and the discord of the 
past have been merged into the movement of the present. 
History, therefore, has a practical aim. We can act more in- 
telUgently in the present by taking account of the contexts of 
the past. The past dimension is convenient for spreading 
out certain present strata and observing their tendency for us. 
In order to have history at all, human, biological, or geological, 



TIME AND THE PROBLEMATIC 295 

we must abstract and simplify as best we can within our com- 
plex present ; we must try to understand the motives of past 
human history in the light of our own present tendencies; 
we must breathe into the symbolic structures of the dead past 
such soul as seems to be called for by their greater simplicity 
or complexity. But we must not be deceived into mistaking 
our constructions for reahty. These past symbolic structures, 
once at any rate, had a soul of their own. In the case of our 
own childhood points of view, moreover, while they are no 
longer real beliefs, we at least own them as once ours, and can 
contrast them with our present point of view as fading memory 
structures. 

While we cannot make the contents of the past, the value 
of the past varies with the purposes of the living present. Hence 
the history of the past is never closed. For history, whether 
political or philosophical or scientific, is a process of evaluation, 
and the value of the past must ever vary with the changing 
purposes of humanity. What seem real values in one period 
of history, may seem illusions in another period. The intoxi- 
cation of military pageant seems as barbarous to a scientific 
and industrial epoch as does the display of human scalps. 
Thus, entirely apart from the discovery of new facts, we see how 
the perspective of history assumes ever new values. It takes 
its coloring, chameleon like, from the context in which it is seen. 
The original values are difficult to reproduce at best as they 
are colored for us by the present background. 

It is not always that the past values appear to us as illusions. 
Sometimes, indeed, they seem prophetic of the present. The 
past attitudes furnish the leading, so it seems, which terminates 
in the present. Here, too, we must be on our guard in reading 
our values into the past attitudes. Each age and sect claims 
the true Christianity, each national party claims to continue the 
true policies of Washington and Lincoln. While the real 
leading cannot here be over-estimated, we must none the less 
realize that we are looking at the past through the eyes of our 
age, and only in the long run, if at all, can the fairness of our 
interpretation be wholly proved. In the meantime, we must 
be modest and open-minded. 

By virtue of individual creativeness, and the complexity of 



296 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

historic currents, with their unequal pace of development, the 
past values may appear not only as prophecies of the present ; 
they may appear as standards of the present. Thus in art and 
philosophy we still look back to the Greeks as masters ; and in 
ethics we find our ideal outlined by the old prophets and 
the Master of "the Sermon on the Mount." But whether we 
look from a higher to a lower level of appreciation, or from a 
lower to a higher, we are equally hmited by the atmosphere of 
value which we carry with us. 

In looking back at the historic series, as we have spread it 
out, it seems indeed to bear the stamp of necessity. But this 
necessity is merely subjective and a posteriori, and should not 
be read into the historic process. It means simply that we could 
not now take account of the facts in a different order, or with 
a different meaning. If we look into the making of history, 
we must not forget, however massive the accumulation of 
experience in the way of customs, language, and institutions 
may seem, that individuals built history, and that the social 
products are the result of their accumulated purposes and 
failures. In the making, as well as now in the interpretation, 
the facts were plastic. While the facts now fit in, and seem the 
natural outgrowth of their predecessors, other facts, had they 
happened, would have fitted in equally well by transforming 
their predecessors into terms of themselves. The facts them- 
selves are gifts therefore, and it is for us to fit them together 
as best may suit our purposes for the time being. The only 
place where reality is determined or stereotyped, is in a stereo- 
typed brain, in a mind that has substituted verbal counters 
for real meanings. 

Knowledge of the Future — The A Priori and Probable 

The future has no content of its own, such as the context 
of the past. What meaning it now has is present meaning. 
The past has a chronology which is binding upon us. We 
must respect the records of the past with their meaning. The 
future knows no records, it respects no data. The future as 
such, therefore, is pure ideal construction. While the social- 
ized past has one dimension, and the present has three dimen- 
sions, — the future has no dimension of its own at all so far as 



TIME AND THE PROBLEMATIC 297 

actual content relations are concerned. It is the projection 
of the present with its observed sequences, quaUties and re- 
lations into the non-being or emptiness of the future. 

That does not mean, however, that we can make up the 
future out of the whole cloth of past and present. The future 
is bound up with the creative aspect of reality, particularly 
with the creative contexts of life and will. It is in part at least, 
and so far as concerns its concrete individuality, indeterminate. 
This can be best illustrated in our own development. The 
self grows, or at any rate changes, with the reaction. In its 
animal innocence of thought, it cannot predict the insight into 
good and evil which may come by eating of the tree of knowl- 
edge. While we must utilize past experience in meeting the 
prospective situation, the alternatives which we thus abstract 
from the situation are only instruments in the service of the 
concrete process which singles them out. Prediction concerns 
the abstract aspects of the facts at best. If reahty did not 
consist of a series of unique dynamic situations, if we could 
predict a priori from the abstract elements or qualities precisely 
what the compound would be, if in short nothing really hap- 
pened, we should have no problem of the future. 

It is this creative character of our world which compels us 
to be empiricists, so far at any rate as the concrete facts are 
concerned. We must qualify all our formulae by saying that 
in so far as the relevant conditions are the same, we may expect 
the same results. But it is only in the simpler physical pro- 
cesses at most that we can for practical purposes control the 
conditions. When we come to human volitions, the conditions 
are being complicated by each act. It is only in the abstract 
and on the average that we can have mathematical precision. 
Aristotle already pointed out the difficulty in making particular 
judgments in regard to the future : ''It is indeed necessary that 
that which is should be when it is, and that which is not should 
not be when it is not, yet it is not necessary that everything which 
is should transpire, nor that everything which is not should not 
transpire ; for it is not the same to say that everything neces- 
sarily is when it is and to assert in general that everything is 
necessarily." ^ To make* a long story short, all necessity rests 

1 "De Interpret.," 19a, 23ff. (translation by W. A. Heidel). 



298 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

upon a certain constitution of the selected facts, and the neces- 
sity, therefore, is only guaranteed, in so far as the special con- 
stitution is guaranteed. Such guaranty in our world can only 
be pragmatic, i.e. for practical purposes certain processes can 
be taken as repeating themselves. We can, for the particular 
purpose, ignore the differences. We can ignore the fact that 
our friend has grown gray, so long as his loyalty remains. How 
often, however, we bank upon conditions being the same when 
they are not the same. You change or the friend changes and 
sympathy and fealty become impossible. Social conditions 
alter and the best old laws become impractical. In our plastic 
human world, at any rate, we must reckon with the imcertainty 
of the future. And of late we have come to look upon all our 
formulae as thus pragmatic and Umited to the abstract and 
observable aspects of the case. 

The only scientific basis for the future is our belief in the 
uniformity of nature, our faith that the present conditions are 
in a measure legislative for those to come. The future which 
science deals with is not the creative, individual future, but the 
present constitution of things extended into the unknown di- 
mension of that which is not yet. The future, therefore, based 
as it is upon characteristics which have been abstracted from 
the individual character of reaUty, must always be hypothetical. 
Other things being equal, if our concepts hold, if the observed 
uniformities are real, such and such things will happen. 

The indeterminist and the determinist have committed the 
same fallacy, so far as making one moment legislative for an- 
other. Each resolves the stream of experience into abstract 
motives and makes these play upon each other. The deter- 
minist, having abstracted certain characteristics on the basis 
of the past, insists that these must hold for the future. The 
indeterminist, too, places his confidence upon certain abstract 
considerations, which he emphasizes within the present, and 
insists that an act in the past might have been otherwise. He, 
too, neglects the time element. But if we use the consciousness 
of regret as the basis for the judgment that we might have acted 
otherwise, we must remember that the act itself has brought 
new insight and that the self, therefore, which judges the past 
is not wholly identical with the self which acted in the past. 



TIME AND THE PROBLEMATIC 299 

What is practically important is that, with the experience gained, 
we can now do otherwise. If again we insist with the deter- 
minist that the act must have happened as it did, because in 
retrospect we must read it as consistent with such a past, we 
must remember that had the action happened otherwise, it 
would have been equally consistent with the past, since we 
are judging character by outcome. In each case, our concepts 
are the abstract leadings which enable us to a certain extent 
to control our conduct on the basis of our insight. Were there 
no leadings, social plans would be impossible. Were there 
no change, no future, we should have no plans. 

There is no such thing as prediction in any real sense. The 
pre should at any rate be left out. Science, in its ideal con- 
struction, abstracts from the time aspect and emphasizes only 
the structural aspect of reality. In treating of the physical 
processes, stereotyped as they are, we do seem to have a case of 
mere repetition. But it would be mere dogmatism to suppose that 
even here we have a real repetition. It may be simply repeti- 
tion for us, with our gross system of averages. Scientific knowl- 
edge is only approximate, a convenience for our adjustment. 

If we take account of our scientific attitudes, they surely 
are anjrthing but stable. The so called laws and axioms of 
science are being retranslated all the while. The only identity 
here is the identity of mere symbols, not of meaning surely. 
The symbols, 2 + 2 = 4, may be the same, but our whole con- 
ception of number has been revolutionized within a generation. 
The axioms of geometry, which seemed so absolute even to the 
British empiricists, have been sadly torn to pieces within recent 
times, and have received a new meaning altogether. The 
symbolic equations are the only thing that has been stable 
about the law of gravitation, and even these have been chal- 
lenged of late as mere approximations. The conception of the 
law itself is in the crucible of criticism. The law of conser- 
vation of energy is no longer dogmatically asserted even by 
physicists. Lagrange grants that energy may disappear, and 
Maxwell that it may be increased through a sorting process. 
It is, however, an important working basis. In the light of 
history, therefore, it would be mere idiocy to suppose that our 
conceptual attitudes toward nature are stable. 



300 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

Wlien we consider knowledge which deals with the plastic 
world of meaning, here, at any rate, mere a priori dogmatism 
soon proves its own absurdity. The man who makes the 
social and individual future out of the whole cloth of the present ; 
who regards his private attitudes as legislative for the process 
of history, is bound to bitter disappointment, or at least to be 
the laughing-stock of the future. The man who estabhshed 
the Dudlean lectureship at Harvard, in order that future ages 
might thunder forth their condemnation against ''the damnable 
heresies of the Catholic church," would probably be as chagrined 
at the carrying out of the provisions of his will, as he is amusing 
to us. A man by the name of Paine who gave five thousand 
dollars, something over a hundred years ago, to estabUsh a 
trade school in Boston a hundred years in the future, did not 
realize that the apprentice system would vanish out of our in- 
stitutions before then, and that the courts of Massachusetts 
would have difficulty in translating his will into present pur- 
poses. Pessimistic theologians have mourned over the rejec- 
tion of their religious concepts, their creeds of hell-fire, as Jonah 
mourned over his gourd, not reafizing that it is more important 
that the universe should develop new meanings, than that it 
should be held in the death grip of their past concepts. The 
poHtical reactionary is fearful of departing from the old order 
of things with its manipulation by the few, and smells danger 
in the arousal of a people's conscience and sense of fair play. 
In the language of F. P. Dunne, as regards a recent political 
convention : '" The throuble looks to be over makin' th' timpry 
organization permynint,' said Mr. Hennessy. ' That's all th' 
throuble in th' wu-rr-uld,' said Mr. Dooley. 'Me frind wud 
like to make th' timpry organization iv th' wu-r-uld permynint. 
He ought to. He's timpry chairman, chosen by th' comity.' " 

There is indeed a certain continuity within the process. 
In the midst of our human flux, certain themes seem to be per- 
manent ; and in terms of them, we can judge the changing en- 
deavors of the race. In the midst of the organic fluctuations 
and transmutations, certain types or directions seem to remain ; 
in the midst of the indefinite variations of inorganic compounds 
certain qualities or elements can be traced as practically con- 
stant. Our perspective of the past, therefore, enables us to 



TIME AND THE PROBLEMATIC 301 

make certain disjunctions of probabilities as regards the future. 
At any rate, what happens in the future will not happen without 
relation to the present. The future will be better somehow 
for our seriousness, for our attempts at improvement, even 
though the particular gifts which the future may bring must 
be waited for. With our larger insight into the laws of process, 
we can at any rate improve the present, and so be ready for the 
future. The quality of the gifts which the future brings at each 
moment are conditioned upon the set of the will which conditions 
the future. 

While we cannot anticipate that which is not created, while 
we cannot read off a meaning which can only come into being 
by a transformation of our present meaning, while it is always 
true that the present truth must die in order that the higher truth 
may come, still the present makes certain demands upon it- 
self, which the present does not satisfy. It may be that the 
demands are wrong, it may be that experience will embody the 
demands in a new and larger meaning, but in either case, the 
present provides problems for the future, and furnishes a cer- 
tain direction to the future. 

To recognize that the present makes demands upon itself 
which it cannot satisfy, is a very different thing, however, from 
holding that we now anticipate the fulfilment of these demands, 
and compare our present meaning to a larger meaning. If so, 
knowledge would be complete now and eternally. We may re- 
alize that our hypotheses are inconsistent, and yet be limited 
to them. We do, indeed, believe that, somehow, knowledge 
will not stop here, that by creating new hypotheses and by fresh 
investigations there shall be a survival of the fittest which will 
mean a greater approximation to truth. But if we could 
anticipate that truth now, we would be foolish not to stop work- 
ing. Whether right or wrong, we must make violence on the 
kingdom of heaven by striving to coerce reality to fulfil our 
demands or needs. Whether we succeed or fail, we shall gain 
experience, in the light of which our demands shall have new 
meaning. What is needed is an open mind to meet the future 
without bias or prejudice, and to act on the light as God gives 
us to see the light every 'moment of experience. 

Nor must we be over consistent. It may be necessary even 



302 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

in science, though its aim is a consistent system of truth, to hold 
to contradictory hypotheses for the time being, when such 
hypotheses are useful in deahng with the facts. It may be 
that the contradiction is involved in the nature of things. If 
so, we shall have system in so far as it is possible, and we shall 
be better able to anticipate the behavior of things. It may be, 
and we have a deep-rooted faith that this is so, that the contra- 
diction is due to our own chaotic purposes. If so, such a measure 
of meaning as we can reach will be a necessary step for further 
progress. Passive indifference can only mean failure in any case. 

It is a safe rule to stick to all those demands which seem 
essential for the largest life, whether we at present can reconcile 
them or not. For purposes of knowing it may be important to 
emphasize the unity and sameness and wholeness of things. 
For purposes of action, on the other hand, it may be important 
to take account of the diversity and individuality, the changing 
and incomplete character of things. For ethics, for example, the 
universe must be regarded as plastic, as amenable to human 
purposes, and to a certain extent indeterminate in character, 
if the individual life is to count for something. While what 
seems essential now, moreover, may not seem so in later stages 
of development, and while our beliefs are bound to have new 
meaning as we go on, yet our beliefs are good in so far as they 
now help us to live the richest possible life. The best religion 
and the best philosophy, for us at any rate, is that which grows 
out of our present demands, and meets our present needs. In 
so far as they do so comprehensively and truly, we may be sure 
that they will be taken up into a richer future. 

It is well to keep in mind that knowledge does not exist for 
its own sake, but for the sake of action and appreciation. 
Philosophy may have a creative function, such as poetry and 
art have. If, by creating a certain kind of belief world, we can 
attain to a larger life than we otherwise could, why is not the 
creation of such a belief world a legitimate thing, even though 
it cannot be measured in terms of the prosaic standards of 
science? In the spiritual reality of individual and social life, 
creative faith must be regarded as one of the most important 
factors. Without this, events do indeed happen differently. 
With it, the broken sword can still win a glorious victory. 



TIME AND THE PROBLEMATIC 303 

Our finite attitudes towards the universe are, at best, com- 
promises. Sometimes, they are contradictory, and only the 
more useful for it. When the Presbyterians added to their 
confession of preordination a clause on individual freedom and 
responsibility, they laid themselves open to the charge of in- 
consistency ; but perhaps it was the best they could do ; and at 
any rate, they avowed openly what other religious creeds and phi- 
losophies imply. While consistency is important, our universe 
is too big for consistency, and we often have to hold to postu- 
lates and hypotheses that conflict, because we cannot afford 
to do without them. They serve our needs. Perhaps the 
thinking and research of ages may resolve them into a more 
comprehensive view. In the meantime, it behooves us to be 
modest; to be open minded; to allow fair play of opinions; 
and, while emphasizing what needs to be emphasized as we see 
it, to regard our results at best as decidedly provisional, — step- 
ping^ stones, let us hope, to better things. 

** It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, 
It may be we shall reach the Happy Isles, 
But something ere the end, some work of noble note may yet be done." * 

* Huxley-Tennyson. 



PART V 
FORM AND REALITY 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Identity of the Ideals 

The thesis of this chapter is that the ideals of Hfe, of truth 
and beauty and virtue, are identical as regards form or the 
demands which they set to the concrete will. The difference 
in our ideal activities lies, not in their form, but in the specific 
end in which human nature strives to embody the ideals, — 
the discovery of truth with its characteristic satisfaction, the 
creation and joy of beauty, and the making of a social char- 
acter with its concomitant happiness. In short, the content, 
not the form, differentiates the ideals. 

In dealing with ideals, as in dealing with other aspects of 
experience, we must remember that philosophy must limit 
itself to the overlapping problems. Philosophy cannot treat 
in detail all the various types of concrete social ideals. It must 
content itself by taking account of the large genera under which 
these ideals group themselves according as they have to do with 
thought, appreciation or volitional conduct. 



There have been various efforts in the past both towards the 
unification and the differentiation of the ideals. But both 
types of effort have been largely futile from the failure to dis- 
tinguish between the form and the content of ideal activity, 
between the ideal demands and their concrete embodiments. 
A word first about the attempts at identification. The kin- 
ship of ideals was felt by the ancient Hebrew psalmist in the 
striking invitation : *' Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of 
holiness. '^ But we do not look for abstract analysis in this 
quarter. We are reminded of a similar poetic identification 
by Voltaire : '^Only truth is beautiful, only virtue is lovable." 
We naturally look to the, philosophers for systematic statement. 
Here, too, however, the identification will be found to be 
intuitional and fragmentary. 

307 



308 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

Plato shares with his Greek background the feeUng that the 
good and true and beautiful are somehow one. In the " Protag- 
oras" he strives to identify the virtues as knowledge, for it is 
knowledge that must furnish the measure in the evaluation of 
goods ; and insight when present cannot fail to control conduct. 
Hence the problem of virtue becomes the problem of education. 
By implication all the values of life are here reduced to truth. 
In the " Symposium," beauty, with its intoxicating contempla- 
tion, becomes the supreme ideal. In the '' Philebus " he identifies 
beauty and virtue in terms of their common denominator: 
''Measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue the world over." 
In the ''Philebus" and the "Republic" he makes the good the 
final genus, including under it truth, virtue, and beauty. But 
these are merely brilliant intuitions, — looking now to the form, 
now to the content of the ideals for unity. 

In modern times Shaftesbury has summarized for us the 
Greek point of view as regards this essential kinship of the 
ideals. "What is beautiful is harmonious and proportionable; 
what is harmonious and proportionable is true ; and what is at 
once both beautiful d^nd true is of consequence agreeable and 
good." But this statement too is impressionistic. It fails to 
divorce form and content; and as regards the latter fails to 
furnish the differentia. It amounts to only a feeling for the 
kinship of the ideals. It does not unravel the problem. The 
same Greek feeling is to be found in the poet Schiller, as regards 
the kinship of beauty and virtue, where, on the one hand, 
beauty refines us into virtue and, on the other, the virtuous life 
must be looked upon in its perfect stage as the beautiful soul. 
Lotze, in like manner, feels the kinship of truth and beauty. 
For him the ultimate self-evidence of the unity of truth "must 
no longer be called logical but aesthetic and accordingly will find 
the touchstone of its validity no longer in the unthinkableness, 
but in the plain absurdity of its contrary." And again : "The 
coherence of the many single elements of truth which enables 
them to be ranged under a simple fundamental idea may rest 
upon aesthetic propriety." ^ Here too the relation is a matter of 
intuition, not of clearness and distinctness. 
My revered teacher, the late C. C. Everett, came back to the 

» Lotze, "Logic" (Eng. Trans.), Vol. II, pp. 329-330. 



THE IDENTITY OF THE IDEALS 309 

problem of identification again and again. Thus he tells us : 
"Goodness and beauty are really manifestations of truth." ^ 
Again : " The three ideas of the reason are simply manifestations 
of one and the same principle. The first affirms that which is, 
the second that which ought to be, while in the third we find 
that which is as it ought to be, the fulfilled perfection." ^ To 
this relation to the will I shall come back later, but what made 
Everett feel the kinship was the implication of unity in each 
ideal. 

Lately, there has been an attempt to identify the types of value 
from the biological point of view, sometimes in terms of adjust- 
ment and sometimes in terms of satisfaction. But apart from 
the adequacy of the method, this is after all only the statement 
of the genus. It still remains to state the differentia in each 
case-, whether of adjustments or satisfactions. Of course this 
must be done in terms of concrete values. At any rate the 
fancied unification is only vagueness. 

II 

If the efforts at unification of ideals have been intuitional and 
confused, so have the efforts at differentiation. Thus it has 
been suggested that the aesthetic attitude differs from the scien- 
tific and moral in that the aesthetic is isolated and sufficient unto 
itself, while the other attitudes imply larger connections. But 
in no case can we isolate so as to cut off completely from the 
background of experience. This is the more of life, which our 
ideal abstraction is intended to make significant. In each case 
there must be the fringe, the suggestive value. Art is as 
meaningless as science, where the individual fails to bring the 
necessary equipment of experience. The object in any case 
is a focus of suggestion, an effort, not merely to suppress, but to 
control association in a definite direction. The suggestions, 
however, must grow out from the expressed relations, — the 
object, not from the mere label. They must be continuous 
with the object and germane to it, — intrinsic and not merely 
extrinsic, internal and not merely external to the theme. The 
savage and the child do not discover the beauty in the Angelus 

1 " The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith," p. 148. 
^Ibid., 200. 



310 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

because they lack the background of experience to suggest its 
internal meaning. 

Since our ideal strivings are meanings, they must in the nature 
of the case select and abstract such aspects as will make the rest 
significant. In a measure all idealization is isolation, emphasis. 
But they must suggest, too, the larger setting and unity. The 
whole is never the merely present even in art. We might define 
art, with more truth, as companionship with the universe, to 
which the selected aspect furnishes the friendly introduction. 
Not merely what is presented, but rather what we bring in the 
way of experience and demands, is what constitutes art-'stic 
creation and appreciation. The selected object is the focus, the 
nuclear constellation of content, which suggests the richness 
of concrete experience. All idealization is abstraction, but 
abstraction not for its own sake, but for the sake of making the 
concrete significant. 

Since in each field the object is constituted by the selective 
interest, we cannot make this the differentia. In the case of 
each type of ideal realization, we must know the selective aim 
for the activity to have meaning. I saw little of merit in a 
painting before which I stood recently, until I read the subject, 
''Fleeting Shadows." And then it was marvelous. The artist 
had selected this aspect, the rest was foil. Lamb refused to 
admit that 2x2 = 4 until he knew what use was to be made of 
it. Whether true or not depends upon the selective aim. Of 
abstract quantities it is true, but not of human personalities. 
Whether a deed is morally significant or not depends upon the 
aim. If done from impulse, it is a mere natural event like the 
falling stone. If done from motive, it indicates a good or mean 
character. Thus all ideals tend in part to abstract, isolate, 
frame. But they also have their larger individual and cosmic 
setting. 

It has been customary to credit moral activity with the aim 
of improvement as contrasted with other types of ideal activity. 
But it must be clear now that, in neither case, do we take expe- 
rience as we find it. In each case must the immediate be recon- 
structed in conformity with our ideal demands. In each case 
must there be selection, emphasis, suppression of motley details 
in order to make experience significant. In neither case do we 



THE IDENTITY OF THE IDEALS 311 

make the facts or data. We create by selection ; we bring out 
the promising relations ; we experiment to express in terms of 
the presented material what we deeply and truly mean as 
idealizing selves. 

Another attempt at differentiation of ideals is based upon 
their relation to attention. The aesthetic ideal, for example, 
is held to be characterized by spontaneous attention, uncon- 
scious creativeness, the immediate absorption of the will, 
while the scientific and ethical ideals, especially the latter, are 
held to involve active and strenuous attention. Attention, 
however, does not furnish conclusive differentia. The moral 
life cannot be distinguished from the aesthetic by the sense of 
effort involved in the obedience to the moral law. We must be 
careful not to confuse points of view, — the point of view of the 
creative activity and that of the spectator of the result. The 
latter does not necessarily require effort in any case. As regards 
the former it may require effort in any ideal activity. Working 
by genius does not mean working without effort, even though 
genius is more than dint of hard work. Artists do not 
necessarily dash off the results which we sometimes find it so 
easy to appreciate. Spontaneous genius does not exist outside 
the story books. Few realize the painstaking toil that has 
entered into what seems to us so spontaneous and satisfying. 
The original of many a stylist seems fairly lost in the corrections 
which overlay it. The artist may have spoiled many pictures, 
with heartrending consciousness lest he should miss the gleam, 
before he gave us this masterly result. Nor is it an unmistakable 
sign of art that we should enjoy it immediately, — as it were, 
love it at first sight. The first impression in the world of art 
is not, any more than in the world of truth, necessarily most 
worth while. In either case, the immediate hazy intuition 
must be made clear and distinct by analysis of the idea of the 
author in its various moments. This eventually brings back 
the sense of unity greatly enhanced. 

In the case of the moral life, on the other hand, active atten- 
tion has been emphasized. But temptation and effort may 
indicate only a bad education. They are no test of the worth 
of conduct. The really moral life finds socialized conduct, the 
proper volitional response to a common life, largely automatic, — 



312 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

a second nature controlling the primitive type. The sense of 
effort should be a transition stage to spontaneous obedience of 
the moral law. In any case idealized conduct means controlled 
or measured conduct, and this can only be had through training. 
At the beginning of the ideal life the gods set labor. Spon- 
taneous mastery, absorbed attention in the ideal object, in the 
case of any ideal activity, logical, aesthetic, or moral, is the fruit 
of training and self-control. The feeling of effort indicates the 
novice. It has nothing to do with the worth of the activity. 
Some people could not give spontaneous attention to anything 
but rag time. That does not make them moral. 

Each form of ideal activity has its ought, its sense of incom- 
pleteness, the command of the ideal, or, to use Professor Palmer's 
phrase, the command of the whole to the part. Beauty and 
truth as creative activities have their ought as well as the 
moral law, — their sense of failure, their feeling for potential 
wholeness, ''which bids us neither sit nor stand but go" that 
we may attain the ideal. From life's larger point of view, at 
any rate, the poet, as well as the sick soul cowering before the 
categorical imperative, feels the discrepancy between what is 
and what ought to be. Hence the sense of fragmentariness, 
hence the effort at improvement. The ought characterizes 
all ideal realization in the process of becoming; and seldom, 
especially in the deeper genius, is the process complete. Tragic 
is the moment when he can say to his life's ideal : " Verweile 
dock du hist so schonJ^ 

Sometimes, indeed, for a limited purpose, the consciousness 
of discrepancy between attainment and ideals scarcely enters 
into the particular judgment. Sometimes a particular truth 
seems to come as a flash of intuition, the brief lyric pours 
into a final mold in an ecstatic birth of beauty, the good deed 
comes with a sense of enthusiasm and self-surrender instead of 
effort. Each viewed in its isolation seems final and satisfying. 
But such cases are exceptions, and, even so, are the gift of a 
previous set of the mind, subconsciously incubated in the mean- 
time. Goethe's *' Faust " required a hfetime of labor to produce 
and takes as long to appreciate. 

As regards results to life as a whole, here too no sharp line 
can be drawn. It is no detraction from beauty that it has 



THE IDENTITY OF THE IDEALS 313 

results on our larger activity. On the contrary, it inevitably 
has such results and must be judged in a measure by them. 
Art has no license to violate our other ideal demands. It 
must be true to science in dealing with an actual world. It 
cannot make its own anatomy or space perspective. It must 
be estimated in scientific terms, even though it is not science. 
So hkewise must it be considered with reference to the larger 
race Hfe. It has subserved and still subserves a use in race 
survival. As the grown man's play it has its important place 
in the economy of human Hfe. To be beautiful an object must 
be idealized, i.e. liberated from the sensuous. Its suggestion 
must be ideal suggestion. Thus it purifies. The same can be 
said of truth. Truth has its results, its larger setting in life. 
While it may not be pursued for its use, it has its use in making 
life more efficient. While it is not morahty, it is a noble pursuit 
and gives dignity and calm to the soul. Nor is the moral ideal 
to be judged merely by effects. It is sometimes, notably in its 
highest instances, tragically out of accord with its temporary 
environment. Sometimes it is permanently impracticable, 
though nevertheless noble and inspiring. Extreme other- 
worldliness, ''love your enemies," mystical union, etc., may 
never become practical types, but nevertheless they furnish noble 
reliefs and corrective viewpoints to our work-a-day, prudential 
world. 

If again we try to differentiate the ideals from the point of 
view of development, we must be consistent. We must be care- 
ful to take them from the same standpoint. If we look at them 
as ideal results or in retrospect, they of course cannot develop. 
The past as such does not change. The hypothesis of Thales, 
whether true or mistaken, marks a mile post in science. The 
emancipation proclamation taken as a deed remains what it is. 
It may be evaluated as a historic event independent of the 
agent. So with the art work. Schubert's ''Unfinished Sym- 
phony " is as finished as it is going to be. 

If we take the creative point of view, the particular results 
become moments in a life history. Hypotheses are steps in dis- 
covery, deeds are the marking places in the progressive realiza- 
tion of will, each successive work unfolds the larger motives and 
possibilities of the artist. Each Madonna of Raphael gives 



314 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

not only the spectator, but the artist an additional insight into 
his idealized conception of womanhood ; and in the series we 
can see improvement, clearer consciousness of aim. Finished 
results, — absolutely finished, — are but an illusion from the 
creative point of view, a testimony to our limitations. 

If you look again at ideal striving with reference to the 
plasticity of its world, it would seem at first glance as though 
we had struck a profound difference. Truth seems to most 
people to deal with a rigid, predetermined constitution, given 
outright, while in ethics, in a strenuous way, and in aesthetics, 
in perhaps a genial way, we must somehow and to some extent 
alter the world to fit our ideals. The contrast, I think, is more 
superficial than real. Truth, so far as it is our activity, is a 
genuinely creative process. If there is an absolute truth, our 
efforts must indeed seem feeble copies to an omniscient spectator. 
But we have no first-hand knowledge of an absolute truth any 
more than we have an intuition of absolute beauty. So far 
as our finite experience is concerned, we create truth, — as we 
create institutions and art, — to meet our needs. In neither 
case do we proceed independent of experience. We must select 
out of its richness the significant aspects. In neither case do 
we make the laws arbitrarily, but rather discover their implica- 
tions in our nature and in the nature of the universe. In the 
last analysis, in either case, we may be imitating an absolute 
mind, but that does not alter our finite problem. The realm 
of truth is as plastic in the hands of the potter as the world of 
beauty. The seemingly more rigid character of the former is 
due to taking truth in retrospect instead of in prospect, as made 
rather than in the making. 

The contrasts which we have examined have been made so 
striking by taking ideal activities from different points of view, 
— the point of view of the spectator being contrasted with that 
of the producer, the part-point of view with the whole-point 
of view, the point of view of effort with the point of view of 
mastery, the point of view of the internal meaning with the 
point of view of the external relations. We can look at any of 
our ideal activities from these and other points of view. We 
can, for example, look at beauty from the point of view of 
creative activity or from the point of view of the spectator or 



THE IDENTITY OF THE IDEALS 315 

assimilator. So in the case of truth or virtue. We can look 
at separate results, — separate concepts, separate deeds, or 
separate pictures, — or we can regard them from the point of 
view of a self-realizing process of truth, beauty, and virtue. 
In any case we must be careful, in comparing the ideals, to adopt 
the same point of view for each comparison, — to compare 
development with development, creative activity with creative 
activity, finished product with finished product, etc. The 
confusing of points of view led to the failure of the above 
comparisons. 

So long as we regard our ideal activities from the same point 
of view, we find that what we can say of one ideal in the way 
of formal characterization we can always say of the others. 
There may be pedagogical convenience in setting the ideals 
over against each other for certain purposes. But the difference 
finally does not lie in the form, but in the content. In our sur- 
vey we have seen how some have emphasized the abstract 
character of truth as wholly abstract. Some have emphasized 
the selective character of art as complete isolation. Some have 
emphasized the infinite demand of the moral law and contrasted 
it with the finitude of our other ideals. But these are not fair 
contrasts. They are not made from the same point of view. 
The abstractions of truth must be made, as must the selections 
of art and virtue, in the service of attaining a larger insight into 
the concreteness of life, not for the sake of abstraction. Art, 
like truth and virtue, only isolates for clearness and distinctness. 
The seeming isolation of the frame, — of the specific science, of 
the particular art work, of the particular life conduct, — 
merges in its depths into the cosmic background and can be 
understood only with reference to this. The object as framed 
in the focus of attention serves but to suggest a vague sentiment 
or ''recollection" of the constitution of the universe which makes 
certain ideal demands upon itself through us and in which the 
sharp outhnes of our abstraction fade into the moving, continu- 
ous woof of reality. The larger part of the meaning is always 
in the fringe. And if the ideal, as in the case of moral striving, 
appears as an infinite imperative, this is no less true of our other 
ideal demands in so far aS we dwell upon the prospective, cre- 
ative side and measure the felt potentialities of human nature in 



316 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

terms of its finite attainment. We must strive to bring clear- 
ness and distinctness not only into the ideal object, but we must 
bring such clearness and distinctness into the relations of the 
ideals themselves, and thus rescue them from the confusion of 
mixed view-points. 

Ill 

Having laid down the thesis that the ideals, as abstract or 
formal, are identical in all our striving for evaluation, we must 
now try to make clear what these ideals are. It will be seen on 
scrutiny that our ideal activity implies four demands which the 
object must meet. They may be stated as unity, harmony, 
simphcity, and universality. In the first place there must be 
unity. The various parts of the situation must be capable of 
being understood in terms of one idea, they must follow from a 
common principle or purpose which they are seen to embody. 
This can be shown in scientific synthesis, whether inductive or 
deductive. A generalization is never a mere collection or 
summary of particulars. The mere cinematographic registra- 
tion of facts in repetitive memory does not constitute truth. 
The sequence of rain and sunshine, weddings and divorces, 
births and funerals is a meaningless show unless we can read the 
sequence in terms of a universal. Events, in order to be science, 
must be seen to follow from an hypothesis, and the hypothesis 
from the events. They must, for our pragmatic purposes at 
least, embody an idea or tendency. Bodies must not merely 
fall, but they must be predictable in terms of a mathematical 
law ; life must not merely present a riotous sequence of change, 
but there must be within it a tendency to change in definite 
ways. There must be overlapping, the unity of a universal. 

The same is true in art. What we must first discover in the 
object of beauty is the idea expressed in the details, the universal 
embodied in the diversity of parts. This universal may not 
lie at the surface. You must live in the presence of the Sistine 
Madonna, you must be willing to give serious study to Hamlet, 
to grasp the significant unity. Else the Sistine painting is a 
collection of more or less pleasing figures, Hamlet a series of 
more or less interesting episodes. You can't go to sleep over 
the great masterpieces any more than over the great scientific 



THE IDENTITY OF THE IDEALS 317 

hypotheses and grasp their significance. You must enter into 
the creative idea of the artist. 

What is true of science and art is Hkewise true of virtue. 
The virtuous Hfe is not a series of episodes, — of more or less 
beneficent impulsive acts. Such a life is non-moral. You 
must find the meaning, the motive, the idea to be realized in the 
multitude of events and choices. They must be strung on a 
universal in the light of which they can be interpreted. If you 
are taking account of life as a spectator, you must put yourself 
at the actor's point of view, or as nearly so as your human limi- 
tations permit. Not only through the ages, but through the 
acts of each individual will with which you strive to sympathize, 
there must run a purpose. The shallow excuse: ''I did not 
mean it," is an attempt to place oneself outside of moral re- 
sponsibility. When it is clear that a deed follows from no prin- 
ciple, we not only individually, but legally, abandon the ethical 
criterion of good or bad. We see then that the first demand upon 
ideal activity, whether taken from the agent's or the spectator's 
point of view, is the discovery of an idea or universal in the 
variety of facts. 

In the second place, in all ideal activity there must be har- 
mony, — the parts must support or reenforce each other within a 
whole. Take it first in the realm of science : Facts must lean 
on ideas, and ideas on facts. There must be fluency of transi- 
tions or adjustments. There must be not merely evidence, but 
organized disjunctive evidence, where the parts supplement and 
reenforce each other. And the evidence must be adequate. 
It must be proportional in complexity to the idea which it aims 
to support. We cannot rest a momentous hypothesis on slender 
evidence and feel security or ease in the relation, any more than 
we can rest an immense edifice on slender pillars and have our 
will satisfied with the result. 

Harmony in science means not merely organization within 
one hypothesis, but it means also that hypothesis must support 
and reenforce hypothesis within the overlapping fields of expe- 
rience. Species must supplement each other, as well as indi- 
vidual lean upon individual within the larger kind which we 
strive to define. Harmony, organization, is therefore of the 
very nature of scientific system. One negative instance, one 



318 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

outstanding fact which fails to support the rest within the scope 
of the idea, destroys the idea's claim to express the facts of the 
kind and challenges to a new idea. 

In art the importance of harmony is even more obvious. It 
is not enough that each part bears the imprint of the idea, like 
a heap of stamped bricks, but they must mutually reenforce 
the idea. In Guido Reni's Aurora every part testifies to the 
glory of the coming day. But more than that, each part helps 
to reenforce the idea. Movement, brilliancy, color, beaut}^ of 
form, contrast, — all cooperate and converge to fasten the 
attention to the idea of nature's oft-repeated wonder. In 
dramatic opera the human voice, the instrumental music, the 
scenic setting, the acting, — all combine to reenforce the idea 
of the composer. Let any one be false, and the harmony 
is marred. 

That harmony is essential to the moral Ufe has been em- 
phasized both by common speech and by the philosopher. 
The moral life is the balanced life, the rounded life, the life 
in which each tendency of human nature plays its proper part, 
each event receives its proper emphasis. Even with unity of 
motive a life can easily be marred by wrong emphasis, by making 
the trivial into the focal and the important into the by-play. 
The virtuous life is the life which gives each interest and moment 
its due. It is a just Hfe. What harmony in each case — logi- 
cal, aesthetic, and moral — emphasizes is that each part has a 
claim which must be recognized ; and in turn that no part 
may stand by itself. It has sl claim, but it is a claim within a 
whole. The parts must support the principal idea; but this 
they can do only when the idea is adequate to incorporate the 
parts. 

Again, all ideal activity demands simplicity or economy. 
The ideal tolerates nothing superfluous. It is jealous of its 
rights to express itself. Sometimes the characteristic of sim- 
plicity has been emphasized as all-sufficient to define ideal 
activity. Truth is simple, beauty is simple, virtue is simple. 
So they are. But simplicity alone does not define these atti- 
tudes. In the first place, simplicity is meaningless until you 
specify your type of unity. It expresses the negative rather 
than the positive side of ideal selection. Again, simpHcity does 



THE IDENTITY OF THE IDEALS 319 

not necessarily mean agreement or harmony within the unity. 
We must not read the parts out of court, as has so often been 
done, for the sake of simpHcity. Parmenides did so and left 
nothing but empty being, — neither true, nor beautiful, nor 
virtuous. Simplicity is only one ideal demand and must be 
pursued in harmony with the other demands. 

In science, the demand for simplicity means that entities 
or hypotheses must not be multiplied. The simplest hypothesis 
which will meet the facts is regarded as scientifically true. Our 
theories must be molded upon reality as we must take it in our 
experience. While the more complex Ptolemaic astronomy 
might be made to meet the facts by cumbrous additions, we 
believe that the simpler Copernican system comes nearer 
expressing the real stellar relations. We must reduce our 
theory to the fewest principles which will meet the situation. 

In art, as in science, simpHcity is a fundamental demand, 
but here too simplicity must vary with the idea to be expressed. 
Hamlet cannot be expressed in as simple terms as the clown. 
The idea must have adequate complexity. Where, however, 
the inferior artist betrays his lack of genius is in the superfluous 
details, the obscuring promiscuity. No wonder art has seemed 
the mere removal of the superfluous, the chiseling away of the 
extraneous marble. This point of view, however, forgets that 
marbles do not come veined with Apollos and Venuses and that 
simplicity itself is meaningless except with reference to the 
selective idea. 

In the moral life, too, simplicity is important. There must 
be directness of aim, the suppression of irrelevant detail, em- 
phasis of the essential. How many a life loses itself in the mere 
multitude of busy episodes. The great hfe differs from the 
small in its simplicity, as the novel differs from gossip. Here 
again simplicity is not the only demand. Mephistopheles is 
more simple than Faust. We must judge life by its type of unity 
and the adequacy of this unity to harmonize the claims of life. 
There may be over-specialization as well as too much com- 
plexity. The idea alone can decide what details to suppress, 
what tendencies to emphasize. 

Finally, all ideal activity implies universality in the sense 
of social objectivity. This does not mean a consensus of all. 



320 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

It means that those with adequate development and training 
should be able to share with the agent the ideal object. Ideal 
activity cannot terminate in mere private states of consciousness. 
This again can be seen in all the varieties of content which the 
ideal may take. First of all, there can be no private truth. 
The processes of truth must be capable of verification by other 
observers. Else we have mythology, hallucination, error. 
Science is primarily a social institution, the outgrowth of our 
common mental constitution and common situations. Neither 
can beauty be private. It may require development and culture 
on the part of the spectators. But if no one but one should 
ever find an object beautiful, we would probably regard him 
as having a queer taste. Art, too, is a social institution, our 
common joy in creative activity and its results. It must define 
common situations. The social character of the ideal becomes 
still more striking in the case of the moral life. We may over- 
look an individual's erroneous thinking, we may laugh at his 
outlandish taste, but we cannot neglect his anti-social conduct. 
Our ethical judgments are through and through social judg- 
ments, — the balancing of claims from the standpoint of their 
fitness for a common life. True, the immediate social environ- 
ment may prove wrong. It may give the hemlock to Socrates 
and crucify Jesus. But to some social environment our con- 
duct must seem valid and fruitful, if we are at length to be 
pronounced moral. Only the immoral man claims an ethics 
of his own, and he only as an exception for himself, not for 
others. Even the fruits of vice could not be enjoyed in an 
anti-social world. 

We have seen so far how in each mode of ideal activity the 
ideal is identical. It is the content that individuates. We 
have examined in turn the four characteristics of the ideal and 
their application to the different ideal activities. The question 
may be raised : Cannot these characteristics be still more sim- 
plified ? This has been attempted in the past. I shall note onlj'- 
one such possibility, and that is the reduction of our ideal 
categories to the demand for clearness and distinctness. Des- 
cartes made this the final criterion of truth. It has been sug- 
gested by Hildebrand as the final criterion of art. I believe 
that such a reduction is impossible if we give this criterion the 



THE IDENTITY OF THE IDEALS 321 

subjective significance which Descartes attached to it. We 
must reduce it to its " cash value," in terms of the relations which 
we discover within the content that embodies the idea. What 
people feel to be clear and distinct is as various as their tastes ; 
and so long as we place the criterion on a subjective basis, we 
can have no standardization. In fact a criterion which needs 
to be standardized, as Descartes tried to standardize clearness 
and distinctness by an appeal to a God who would not deceive, 
is hardly a criterion. If, on the other hand, we give clearness 
and distinctness a pragmatic significance, it will be found to 
imply all the ideal characteristics already stated. Prag- 
matically, it becomes the clear and distinct expression of an 
idea in its selected content, or the clarifying of the content in 
terms of the idea. Such clear and distinct expression must have 
unity within the parts. The idea must include the facts, or the 
facts must fall within the idea. There must be organization 
or the mutual support of the parts. There must be no irrelevant 
details. There must be social objectivity. Just because the 
idea is thus pragmatically clear and distinct, it must compel the 
social approval of the competent. 

IV 

If ideals are differentiated by their matter and not by their 
form, we must cast a passing glance at the content of the ideals. 
From the point of view of content, we may take human nature 
in its three classic modes as cognitive, as appreciative, and as 
volitional, bearing in mind that ideals have no appHcation at 
all until human nature attains the complexity of being con- 
sciously selective. Ideal demands, when applied to the relation 
of ideas to perceptions and to other ideas, become the quest 
for science. To attain fluency, harmony, simplicity, and uni- 
versality as regards the agreement of the idea with the consti- 
tution which it intends is ideal realization in the realm of 
knowing. But we have an affective nature, too, and objects 
must be measured not merely in terms of their existence, but 
in terms of their value. To make objects fluent, harmonious, 
clear and distinct, and un^iversal, so far as our human appreciative 
nature is concerned, constitutes ideal realization in the realm of 
appreciation. Lastly, our volitional claims must be measured in 



322 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

terms of other volitional claims in individual and social history. 
To fulfill the ideal demands of fluency, harmony, simplicity, 
and universality in the realm of our volitional conduct, consti- 
tutes ideal realization in terms of virtue. 

We would have, then, as our criterion the clearness and 
distinctness of the idea as expressed in the selected object, — 
the object of thought, the object of feeling, the object of volun- 
tary conduct. When the clearness and distinctness pertains to 
agreement with a selected constitution, we have truth ; when it 
pertains to appreciation, we have art ; when it pertains to the 
evaluation of will, we have morahty. In either case the idea 
must be adequate, it must be economic, it must leave no out- 
standing details. The difference is not in the ideal, but in the 
process or object selected. 

It is evident that, of the three, the last overlaps, in a vital 
way, the other aspects of our nature. Indeed it is impossible 
except for abstract purposes to treat human nature as divided 
into compartments. The ideational activity would be but a 
pale ghost except as floating in the affective and volitional back- 
ground. In turn, beauty must have meaning, and so involves 
the ideational side. All creative activity finally must have its 
spring in the will and its tendencies. If ideals are identical in 
their form, they also overlap in their matter. They must blend 
in the unity of the one fife. 

I have tried to show that our ideal activities are identical 
as regards their form, the ideal demands to be realized. By 
this insistence I do not mean to ignore the fact that the ideal, 
as realized in the different modes of human nature, differentiates 
into unique species. Science, art, and morality are different 
in the concrete, as truly as they are identical in the abstract. 
They constitute specific embodiments of the will. When we 
seek truth we do not seek beauty as our aim, when we seek 
beauty we do not seek morality. Satisfactions they all are ; and 
as such they are all included in the good, as Plato pointed out 
long ago. But they are different species of the good. Each 
works within a certain type of material or instrument, through 
which it realizes its function in making clear and distinct 
the end. The matter or instrument of science is conceptual 
relations ; the matter of art is concrete imagination ; the matter 



THE IDENTITY OF THE IDEALS 323 

of ethics is impulse. Each sets itself certain limitations, 
respects the nature of its material. The ideal, in the case of 
truth seeking, sets itself the limitation of agreement with a 
selected constitution, abstract or concrete. That our will 
sometimes figures as a creative factor in this constitution, that 
it sometimes makes ideas come true, does not alter the necessity 
for our cognitive nature to take account of the facts as made, 
of discovering the laws in the sequence. While human nature 
must make ideal demands upon the universe to have truth, it 
can only succeed provided that the universe lends itself to such 
ideahzation. We cannot legislate arbitrarily to nature. We 
must try to discover clearness and distinctness within the rela- 
tions of nature. That success here is possible is due to the fact 
that reason is not an arbitrary addition to nature, but that 
reason grows up in the soil of nature, is nature's reflection upon 
itself. 

In beauty the aim is not the breaking up and systematizing 
of reality for the discovery of its constitution, but for the 
sake of social and constant objects of enjoyment, — the joy in 
activity and contemplation on the part of the developing, 
historic will. This producing of agreement between nature and 
our affective-emotional human nature is a different value or 
satisfaction from that which our search for truth yields. Here 
too, however, nature and human nature must conspire. As 
parts of the evolution of nature, we are such and nature is such, 
that we can discern relations and objects which furnish perma- 
nent and spontaneous joy in the play of our faculties. We are 
made for the sunset as much as the sunset is made for us. 

Finally, the ethical end in the concrete is the harmonious 
adjustment of the individual to the historic social will, — the 
discovery of right or justice in the measure of volitional claims. 
Here, too, life or nature lends itself to such adjustments of 
claims. Our ideal demands are found to be practical and, in the 
progressive realization of the meaning of Ufe, the only practical 
ways of social conduct. Nature again conspires with human 
nature. 

While the concrete values or ways of realization are different 
for thought, feeUng, and character ; while they lead to unique 
satisfaction of the will, they must support and supplement 



324 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

each other, and, because subjected to the same ideal demands, 
they must fundamentally and ultimately agree with each other. 
That is, the truth must, without surrendering its specific 
character as true, also be found beautiful and noble; and so 
with the other ideal values. '' Human nature in its progressive 
realization can be seen to be fundamentally one, and the realiza- 
tion of the true must be seen to be fundamentally bound up 
with the right and the beautiful, and all to be species of the good 
of the entire self, though this does not prevent us from recogniz- 
ing certain differentia in this ultimate good. The good in the 
concrete means proper functioning on the part of human nature 
in its various relations, the harmonious activity of all its capac- 
ities, fluency of life, consistency of transitions. The right 
means fluency of functioning as regards human individuals in 
their institutional relations, the proportional equahzation of 
claims. The beautiful means the harmonious and complete ex- 
pression of our ideal demands in terms of our affective nature, the 
feeling of fitness and support as regards the various parts of the 
aesthetic object. Truth means the fluent termination of the clear 
and distinct idea in its intended facts. In the equilibrated life 
of the individual as a whole, all human nature, — cognitive, 
emotional, and volitional, — must function with ease and fluency 
of transition without any conflict of the activity for the true with 
the realization of the beautiful or the right. They are never- 
theless specific forms of the good ; and, in our imperfect finite 
development there may be provisional discord." ^ In the mean- 
time, while the conflict is partial and halting, the unity on the 
formal side is clear and eternal. 

It is clear that, in idealizing human nature as an individual 
whole, the same ideal demands hold as in the case of the spe- 
cific types of realization. Here, too, there must be unity, har- 
mony, simplicity, and universality. An ultimate ideal must 
be found comprehensive enough to include all of our human 
tendencies. Further, the parts must harmonize or reenforce 
each other. The part-ideals must work together so as to supple- 
ment and interpenetrate within the whole of life. Here, too, 
there must be simplification and universality. Within life in 
its wholeness there can be no conflict of reason. 

» "Truth and Reality," pp. 238, 239. 



THE IDENTITY OF THE IDEALS 325 

Such wholeness; however, we fail to find within our finite 
human realization. And as our nature must be loyal to such 
a wholeness or perfection and cannot rest in the provisional and 
partial realization, the religious consciousness, the conception 
and worship of God, must eke out our finite limitations. In 
our religious loyalty we feel that our ideals are concretely 
realized. Religion adds no new values to those already men- 
tioned. But it adds the sense of completeness, of unification, 
and of conservation to our finite ideal strivings. The identity 
of the abstract form is here exchanged for the unique unity of an 
individual life, in which form and content are fully blended, 
where the unity of the ideal purpose embraces all the facts, 
where the parts all support each other, where there is clearness 
and distinctness of relationships of parts, and where all mere 
subjectivity disappears in the organized whole. This final unity 
of concrete interpenetration is at the other end from the abstract 
formal ideals which we have considered. 

The end of life is to transcend finality, in the sense of abstract 
ideals with their sense of obligation, and to reach spontaneity, 
— unity of form and content, perfect activity. In a perfect 
being the ideals interpenetrate each other as they clothe them- 
selves in a matter no longer foreign to themselves, but their 
idealized and transfigured embodiment. This living unity 
we worship as God. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Form and the Ought 

The Nature of Form 

We have seen in an earlier chapter ^ that all our general- 
izations presuppose three fundamental characteristics, viz. 
variables, recurrence, and form : It must be possible to analyze 
out, within the flux of reality, certain distinctive qualities or 
entities ; these must be generic, i.e. they must recur in various 
individual situations, and in various moments of time ; and, 
lastly, they must be capable of being formulated in terms of a 
few simple principles, — the object with which we deal must 
have a definite ''architecture." This applies to all our gener- 
alizations, whether of pure mathematics, or of physics, or of 
social relations. 

Now, it is a notable fact that while we have recognized the 
importance of the characteristics of variables and recurrence, 
the characteristic of form has often been treated as accidental. 
It has seemed somehow as though the form were added to the 
constitution of reahty by our minds. Our mind is so constituted 
as to read order into the universe. It looks for resemblances 
and groups things under laws and kinds. It stamps its an- 
thropomorphic ideals and purposes upon its world. So impa- 
tient is it of chaos and diversity, that it takes short cuts. It be- 
comes dogmatic about its superficial analogies and formulae, 
and treats them as absolute. Further investigation, however, 
discloses new diversities and complexities. The old formulae 
are seen to be crude approximations. The cry is for a first- 
hand acquaintance with things. The old generalizations are 
condemned as fictions, which in a great measure they have 
been. Sometimes, the human mind has become skeptical as to 

1 See Chapter III. 
326 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 327 

the possibility of ever discovering any objective order, such 
skepticism being always in proportion to the previous dogma- 
tism. Moreover, with our human limitations, the subjective 
element is hkely ever to be prominent, and the critical spirit 
is apt to find again and again that what we had taken for the 
architecture of reality is in fact the artificial creation of our 
immature will-to-believe. Under such circumstances, the 
interest in the individual variables comes to loom large; and 
nominalism for the time supplants realism. Objective form 
is for us at any rate, as Plato saw, a limit in the flux of human 
opinion. 

It is only fair, however, to point out that our knowledge of 
the diversity and generality of the structure of our world is no 
more final than our appreciation of its form. The three must 
proceed pari passu. We discover the diversity when we 
attempt to sort it into kinds ; and we cannot know about either 
except as we try to define them, or formulate them into proposi- 
tions and aesthetic structures. We cannot derive the generality 
from the diversity, or the form from either. The question is 
what diversity or generality is significant, — makes clear and 
distinct the problem in question. The principle of economy 
cannot be deduced from mere happenings whether recurrent 
or otherwise. That we shall combine the predicates of reality 
in certain ways to establish order and meaning is a fact of 
another dimension from their mere chance existence. 

It would seem to the unbiased mind that the aspect of form 
has the same basis in the nature of things as have the dis- 
criminations of individual occurrences and their resemblances. 
We do not make the laws of falling bodies, or chemical propor- 
tions, or the natural series of elements, or the unity of the or- 
ganism, or the consistency of the argument, or the harmony of 
the art work when we discover them. In so far as our formula- 
tions really work, we must regard them as the architecture of 
the world which we strive to know, and not merely as the 
architecture of our mind. It seems reasonable that the untiring 
search of our mind for order, faulty and stumbling though it is 
in execution, is somehow a reflex of the world of which mind 
is the conscious expression. As Santayana puts it: "It is 
no part of the essence of numbers to be congenial to me ; but 



328 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

it has perhaps become part of my genius to have affinity to them, 
simply because nature of which I am a part, and to which all 
ideas must refer to be relevant to my destiny, happens to have 
mathematical form." ^ As our primitive instincts are rec- 
ognized to be responses to fundamental characteristics and 
demands of our environment, so we must recognize that our 
higher instincts which have to do with form, with order and 
beauty, are indeed orientations to the universe of which we 
are a part. They are, in the Platonic sense, "recollections'* 
of the constitution which interpenetrates human nature as 
well as nature and of which we become conscious under the 
stress of social dialectic. As the flatfish imitates through its 
eyes the geometrical pattern of the bottom upon which it 
rests, not knowing what it is doing, so the mind, through a 
long process of trial and error, comes to imitate the formal 
constitution of the universe. For the most part, its adaptation, 
too, is blind groping with relative approximation. Only as it 
rises to reflective consciousness, can it begin to bring into clear- 
ness and distinctness the higher laws of its being. And even 
then, it must be largely prejudiced by the fact that it must 
judge the great world through the peculiar limitations in which 
its pattern reveals itself in human experience. 

From the fact, however, that the laws of thought are implied 
in our mental constitution, and have been forced upon it in 
its adjustments to the objective world, we have at any rate a 
presumption that the laws of thought are the laws of things. 
This presumption comes to be further verified through thought's 
success in dealing with its world in its hypothetical procedure. 
Reason is not an accident, but has come to pass, and is success- 
ful, because the world is somehow congenial to it. The prag- 
matic procedure must judge by fruits, and if ideals are outcomes 
of the human experiment to meet its world, they must have a 
basis in the nature of reality. An abstract analysis which em- 
phasizes elements, and neglects the organizing relations, gives 
us bricks without mortar, and fails to restore the structure 
which it has torn to pieces. 

There have indeed been true realists in the past who have 
recognized the importance of form — your Plato and Aristotle, 

» "Winds of Doctrine," p. 120. 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 329 

your Spinoza and Leibniz. The difficulty that we meet is 
that they have not been clear as to the nature of form. There 
has been especially a tendency to confuse form with the concept 
of activity. Even Plato, the first to appreciate the reality 
and significance of form, sometimes labors under this confusion. 
In the " Sophist," he makes his Ideas forces in order to guaran- 
tee their efficacy which, no doubt, seemed hazy enough to his 
contemporaries. As imitated by our purposive will, form, no 
doubt, comes to have efficacy, since organized effort, whether 
individual or social, is more effective and economic than un- 
organized; but as pure form, it can have no more efficacy 
than other abstractions. 

The poverty of Aristotle's ultimate concepts leads to the same 
difficulty. Aristotle's two ultimate concepts are matter and 
form. But matter, by hypothesis, is a purely passive principle, 
hence form must be the active principle in order to account 
for motion. It is true that Aristotle is by no means consistent 
in the use of these concepts. Matter sometimes seems to be 
endowed with a certain refractoriness or inertia. The active 
principle, again, is sometimes treated in a mechanical fashion 
as moving the world by push. But in the last analysis, hazy 
though his statement is, it seems to be form which exercises an 
attractive influence upon matter — the higher stages of form 
upon the lower, and pure form upon the process as a whole. 
Upon one thing, however, Aristotle is clear, and that is that 
form is not produced by the process, but legislates to the proc- 
ess. Hence evolution is not a one way process, from formless- 
ness to form, as Herbert Spencer would have us believe; but 
form in all the varying themes and movements of cosmic evolu- 
tion is always equally real. 

Aristotle's difficulty shows itself not only in his concept 
of evolution, but in his concept of definition. A thing must be 
defined through its functions. Hence the functions constitute 
the form of the thing. But since the functions are an indefinite 
number, we never could have definition on this basis. Rather 
form consists in the selection of such functions as are relevant, 
as will make the thing or class clear and distinct. It has to do 
somehow with economy ^nd simplicity, not with the endless 
variety of the perceived world. Here the advantage appears 



330 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

of distinguishing between the concept of energy, with its indef- 
inite number of variables, and the concept of form. Form 
has to do, not with transformation, but with formulation — 
with the possibiUty of defining our situations in the terms of 
clear and distinct principles. We have seen that the simpler 
and more stereotyped kinds of reahty, such as are dealt with 
in mechanics, have the advantage in simpUcity ; but the tend- 
ency towards clear and distinct types is present in the more 
complex stages of reahty, too, — in the world of life and mind, 
with their creative transmutations. The bias of the human 
mind for such clearness and distinctness must be regarded as a 
cosmic fact. 

Spinoza is a striking example of the confusion of form with 
acti\'ity. Wlien he is not speaking as a phj^sicist or psycholo- 
gist, but treating of reahty from an ethical and metaphysical 
point of \'iew, acti\'ity becomes identical with clear and distinct 
ideas. Now it cannot be disputed that activity becomes 
valuable in proportion as it is organized activity, with a clear 
and distinct direction. It is thus, that it becomes formulable and 
understandable. But it is not the clearness and distinctness 
which produce the activity. They have to do with another at- 
tribute of reality. 

Leibniz has, in the main, copied Aristotle and his ambiguities. 
The monads develop by their inherent form, but they also 
seem to be stimulated to do so by the existence of a hierarchy 
of monads, ha\ing for its poles, confused unconscious percep- 
tion as the lower limit, and the clear and distinct self -conscious- 
ness of God as the upper limit. Leibniz, however, sometimes 
drops into the mystic conception of the perfect monad as 
creating the lower monads by some sort of emanation from it- 
self. What is most significant, however, in Leibniz for our 
purpose, is the principle of sufficient reason which generically 
expressed amounts to a demand for reasonableness or logical 
coherence in our world, so that its motley variety can somehow 
be stated in terms of clear and distinct principles or defining rela- 
tions. In this, we have, indeed, the essence of form. 

\Miat the formal constitution of the universe determines is 
not the endless variety of changes, fluctuations, and mutations. 
These are due in part to the internal, in part to the external 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 331 

conditions of the energies of our world. What is formally 
predetermined is a certain clearness and distinctness, a certain 
definiteness of type required of the fluctuations that appear, 
if they are to survive. This demand for clearness and dis- 
tinctness comes to consciousness in our mental organization. 
But it must also be conceived as characteristic of the con- 
stitution of the cosmos itself of which mind is a part. Only 
so can it be relevant and successful. Nature works like an 
artist. While we cannot predetermine the particular attempts 
at art, we know that only those attempts can survive as art 
which are clear and distinct. 

Powerless indeed is this form to create its special content. 
It cannot work in vacuo. The grist must be furnished by pro- 
cess. This may be the free acts of willing subjects ; or, lower 
down, chance variations, of the inwardness of which we are 
ignorant. Nor can the form arrest the flux, nor annihilate its 
space conditions ; but, within the process, it can determine 
that what shall survive must have worth, the particular rich- 
ness or coloring being due to the process within which the form 
selects. The universe indeed becomes other for our earnestness 
or frivoHty, our strenuousness or laziness. But this, at least, 
is true : that what survives must be in Une with the direction 
of the process. The tragedy, moreover, Hes not only in will- 
fully missing the good, but in intending the good, and because of 
ignorance of the complexity of life and of the future, doing the 
evil ; the well-meaning man having to proclaim in the tragedy 
he has wrought : ''Das ist nicht was ich meinte." 

Form is nothing, measured in terms of the world of sense-stuff, 
with its content and uniformities. Yet it is infinitely more 
valuable than the world of stuff. It can be no less real than 
energy, for it determines its meaning and direction. It cannot 
work independently of the finite, but in the transmutations of 
that which is, it asserts its supremacy. It determines the 
survival of the structures of stuff and ideals. For our ideals 
are structures striving to reflect or embody eternally the in- 
finite direction. But their eternity is only in the intention; 
their content is relative. 

Form is eternal. Since form is not stuff, mind-stuff or any 
other stuff, it is not subject to time and process. Only stuff 



332 A REALISTIC XTSTIVERSE 

is transmutable. Ha\Tng no content, not being itself stuff, 
form itself is not subject to transformation. The formal con- 
stitution which sets the limit of process is not itself process, 
because then it would be relative and cease to furnish the 
direction for the protean variations of evolution. It remains 
constant in the flux. Thus we are forced to contrast, with 
Plato and Aristotle, the world of stuff and process with the 
world of form. The universe does not indeed become pure 
form ; the logical dualism remains ; but pure form sets the final 
sur^-ival conditions of process. The highest ethical and reli- 
gious type is not cold form, but energy- molded into form, and 
form expressed in energ>^ — the perfect life. 

It has been supposed by some that in order to insure the 
eternity and reality of form, we must have a static universe. 
This is due to confused thinking. To have truth and worth 
in the universe it is not necessary- to be ** stoppers of the uni- 
verse." But it is necessarj^ that the process shall be in some 
way selective. As in the dark, all cows are gray, so in a flux 
without direction there can be no vahd distinction of values. 
So far from its being true that only a static universe guarantees 
worth, ideals can have no meaning in a static world. In such 
a world, everything is, as it were, dumped together, and error 
and e\i\, in so far as they exist, have as much claim as truth 
and goodness. Ideals can have meaning only in a selective 
process. Even the ideal of uniformity can have meaning, as 
Poincare has shown, only in a universe of flux. For it exists 
in the ser^^ce of prediction, and what prediction could there 
be in a stillborn world? Flux on the one hand, and selective 
direction eliminating what is contrary- to it on the other, — 
these seem to be the necessary- postulates in our world. 

With Heraclitus we may affirm that this direction is "the 
divine which feeds aU human laws." It is **the common" 
in the sense that it is valid for all and binding upon all, as op- 
posed to the many who hve "as if they had a wisdom of their 
own." It is not the common in the sense of the identical in the 
many opinions, but as the limit in the historic process. WTiat 
is common to the savage and the ci\'ihzed man, to the fool 
and the wise man, would be pretty thin and meaningless. On 
the contrary, form manifests itself in the concrete process of 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 333 

history, in the real flux, which is not merely a rearranging of 
bits of substance or mathematical models. It is no doubt 
true that the comimon in the sense of the. institutional heritage 
of the race is, on the whole, the safest guide of life. Institu- 
tionahty is the result of workabihty for the time being. But if 
the direction were merely the common, history would be a 
mere dead level without movement or progress. Its flashes of 
light must come first of aU through the individual. 

It is the oSos, ''the path," of process and survival; but not 
in the sense HeracUtus meant it, — an upward and downward 
path, from fire down to water and earth and up again, ''fixed 
measures" being exchanged, — a merely circular process in 
which nothing really happens. Not so with the real time pro- 
cess, where aU uniformity or stuff is relative and absolute 
permanency is merely an ideal limit. In the protean guises 
of the process, form legislates. And while it cannot stop the 
process, it determines what can have meaning and existence 
in the process. It is not the projection of the ideals of the 
individual or of the race at any time. Nor do they intention- 
ally point to it. They point to their own reahzation except 
as they qualify themselves : Not my wiU, but the eternal 
Ought, the objective demand for form, be done; and in so 
far they are contentless. The pointing or direction Hes in the 
destiny "which shapes our ends, rough hew them how we wiU," 
not fatahsticaUy, but by eliminating those free acts or accidental 
variations which do not fit its direction. The formal consti- 
tution of the universe, hke the voice of Socrates, speaks only 
in the negative. Its content is ever changing and ever new. 
It is the direction of history : and yet for us it is ever born 
afresh out of the process it determines. It has no concrete 
being except as it is thus embodied in the fleeting moments. It 
thus furnishes "the way" in the trackless void of the future, 
as it is continually incarnated into the finite. It throws the 
golden light of ideals ahead ; and yet at every moment it is 
a new, because finite Hght, with a new color and radiance, 
always, however, determined by the same form. 

Form is creative, but it creates not by production, but by 
elimination. It is creative as the artist is creative, i.e. by 
selection. It is superior to "essence," as Plato would say, i.e. 



334 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

to concrete truth and beauty as historic products, because it 
determines their worth and survival. It gives beauty to the 
perishing things of earth. It is both the ''heavenly pattern" 
and the artist. It is a real or ontological factor of the 
world. 

It is quite evident that Plato in the Republic and Symposium 
did not mean Idea in the sense of meaning or concept, because 
it is higher than dialectic — presupposed by all thought and 
worth in the concrete. Plato's insistence upon the reality of 
the Idea remains of eternal significance, though this must not 
be confused with the existential class concepts nor with forces, 
as Plato himself and his successors sometimes did. What 
Plato failed to see is that the Idea can only create in a flux 
world and has no other content but the flux. It is indeed an 
abstraction, but not a mere ideal abstraction. It intersects 
the concrete world of process. Only thus could it give signifi- 
cance to process. If Plato could only have made use of the 
conception of struggle and evolution (already dimly outlined 
by Heraclitus), then the world of flux and the Idea of the Good 
could both have been accorded their due reality. He would 
not have had to confess failure as he does in the Parmenides. 

If we cannot give any definite content to the conception 
of absolute direction ; if it remains for us merely the demand for 
law and worth; if, to use Plato's metaphor, we cannot look 
upon the sun itself, what is its child, its phenomenal mani- 
festation? What evidence for its existence in the finite, struc- 
tural world do we have? As we have developed the sense of 
extensity with complex instinctive coordinations to meet 
the reality of space ; as we have developed the sense of dura- 
tion with complex structural adjustments for measuring the 
flight of time process; as we have developed the feeling of 
effort to symbolize energy, so we have developed the feeHng 
for form with its tendencies and sentiments, and its sanctions 
in social institutions, to meet the demands of the universe upon 
us. That, in the nature of things, just because the process is 
infinite, and because our ideals are part of the process, our ideals 
must be finite, does not invahdate the evidence of the feeling 
for ideals so important for the race. That, moreover, these 
sentiments and ideals are growing more essential and more 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 335 

adequate to meet the requirements of life must strengthen the 
faith in their objective reference. 

The process of discovery must, in the case of form, as in 
the case of other aspects of our world, be provisional and tenta- 
tive. It must come through the growing insight of the in- 
dividual as he strives honestly to master his data. It appears 
in experience first of all as a personal gift. In this lies the trag- 
edy of progress. The new insight runs counter to the customs 
and thoughts and habits of the mass. The self-preservative 
instinct of society rises against it; and the bearers of the 
new insight suffer accordingly in the transition and may be 
sacrificed in the readjustment. But by its intrinsic superi- 
ority, its simplicity, and reasonableness, real insight must 
eventually conquer prejudice. A new plateau is established 
in social evolution. This, in turn, is broken through by new 
stimuli from within or from without the consoUdated group ; 
and the equilibrium of custom is again disturbed, until a new 
adjustment can take place. While the human mass always 
retards the creative individuals, and while it is in the first 
instance impressed by the externals of prestige and power 
rather than by merit, the new insight must in the end prove a 
revelation of our own deeper nature, of our own formal con- 
stitution. 

This is, indeed, as Kant maintained, the categorical impera- 
tive. It commands unconditionally. It does not grow out 
of our inclinations and impulses, but it determines the worth of 
these. Its sublimity surpasses the starry heavens, for the whole 
cosmic process is subject to it. In its consciousness we rise 
to meaning and freedom. We are part of another world to 
which the stuff world is subject. It is not the good will, but 
it determines whether wills are good or not. But just because 
it is an absolute limit ; because all our finite ideals are relative 
to it ; because it is the rationale of history and not its product, 
therefore no specific content can be given to it. The maxim 
of universality and all other maxims are but relative to it. We 
can only characterize it in the most general terms, and those, 
too, are finite. It means orderliness and comprehensiveness 
in the regulation of individual as well as social life. It is the 
law that there shall be law. Perhaps that is the safest deter- 



336 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

mination we can give, in terms of reason, of that which trans- 
cends and determines reason. Its concrete content must come, 
in every age, from its finite setting in human institutional and 
individual experience. Thus we are able to meet our concrete 
duties in our generation. 

The ideal must become concrete for us, as Kant saw, by- 
being realized in a kingdom of ends. This is not so simple 
as Kant thought. For Kant, every individual is a little god or 
absolute, legislating for all men and the universe at large. But, 
on the one hand, the individual historic will is not autonomous, 
it must accommodate itself to the institutional life of the race ; 
and the two may clash. Human beings, even when they think 
themselves most rational, do not legislate in the same way, and 
life must proceed by compromises. On the other hand, the 
institutional heritage is not final. The individual may be 
wiser than the institution. But both are subject to the eternal 
direction of the process; this alone is an absolute categorical 
imperative. 

Like the First Mover of Aristotle, form does not itself move ; 
but unlike Aristotle's ''final cause," it is not the cause of move- 
ment, but it determines by its existence the direction and worth 
of the historic process, and thus accounts for progress. It is 
not only transcendent, but ever immanent as part of the con- 
stitution of the finite, i.e. it is the meaning we discover in 
the finite, but more besides. Else the finite would have no 
significance. Only thus could the yearning in the finite for 
the complete and whole originate. In being thus incarnated 
ever anew into human fives and the order of history, it can 
say with the Christ: *'Lo, I am with you always, even unto 
the end of the world." It is the Spirit of Truth which guides 
and shall guide us in all truth. 

This conception agrees with the Thomistic as against the 
Scotist position. It holds that God himself is determined by 
the norms of goodness and truth, rather than that these 
norms are the arbitrary result of God's willing. God on this 
theory would become the concrete, finite, and individual em- 
bodiment of form. We cannot discover ideals from what God 
wills. If it were possible for God to make ideals by arbi' 
trarily willing them, we should have to have some Hermes to 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 337 

bring them down ; and even then, they would be merely arbi- 
trary, not binding intrinsically. It is through our ideals, on 
the contrary, that we come to piece out the concept of God, — 
not as the arbitrary lawmaker, but as the fulfillment of these 
formal conditions of human nature and nature. This fulfill- 
ment is a dynamic or growing fulfillment, — growing in complex- 
ity, creative of higher levels of realization, without invalidating 
the formal constitution which simply demands to be fulfilled. 
This fulfillment does not exclude but implies time. It makes, 
however, our values transcend time just in so far as the ideal 
is fulfilled. Its fulfillment, even in aspects, means eternal value. 

With Hegel, we must agree that history has cumulative 
meaning. This holds, however, in the long run, and not always 
in the sense that chronological and logical unity coincide. His- 
tory is a real process, not merely a system of logic, a scaffold- 
ing of categories. It cannot, therefore, be read off simply 
by logical implication. History is real happening with real 
tragedy and real success. It might have a different content, 
and thus must be studied empirically. What the form deter- 
mines, is that what survives in the ciunulative transformations 
and chances of history must have worth. 

With Fichte, we must agree that the universe has a trans- 
cendental constitution. But this constitution is not merely a 
transcendental system of knowledge, a Wissenschaftslehre, not 
even Fichte's, which he thinks our free wills reject to their own 
damnation. The universe is not merely an ethical system, 
but an ethical process. That which is ''overindividual," is the 
direction of this process; and we are not merely view-points 
within a system, but real actors determining the content, and 
so the character of the world. How we will, or fail to will, 
makes a difference to what the ethical process as a whole can 
realize, and not merely to our individual significance or suicide. 

The ethical process cannot be like the Buddhist Karma, for 
if life is simply the causal result of what precedes, there can be 
no attainment of an ideal ; there can be neither good nor bad, 
but simply the automatic record of the cumulative process. 
Life in that case must remain imprisoned in the iron grasp of 
the past. No, causality itself must be relative. There must 
be some fluency in the process. But most important of all, 



338 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

the criterion must not be simply a product of the past, but an 
independent attribute in order that it may pass upon causality 
and flux alike. The Karma permits of no salvation ; no waking 
up from the evil nightmare. The horrible dream must go on. 

Validity and Form 

The most fundamental dichotomy of our ultimate attitudes 
to the universe is that based upon the reality of form. The 
theories in regard to the stuff of the universe may be academic 
merely. Pragmatically, metaphysical materialism and meta- 
physical idealism may have identical outcomes. Democritus 
and Priestly found room for the same objective values as Plato 
and Fichte. The practical potentialities of their worlds 
were the same. It is different with the contrast of formal 
materialism and formal idealism. While formal idealism holds 
that form is somehow inherent in reality, formal material- 
ism holds to the attitude of brute chance. For the latter all 
relations are external relations. In the theoretical realm this 
means that there is no valid reading of events. There is only 
expediency. In the practical realm it means that might 
makes right whether in personal or group relations. Nor must 
we confuse formal materialism with the concept of scientific 
mechanism. The latter is a purely provisional attitude for a 
special purpose. It does not, or should not, claim to be a 
final philosophy. It is, as a matter of fact, an unconscious 
mathematical idealism. For formal materialism, meaning and 
value are accidental. Ideals are somehow a poetic fiction, a 
momentary addition to our world without intrinsic connection 
therewith. The events of the universe have no direction. 
They simply happen. And the sequence is determined in 
every case by the external accidents of the situation. Formal 
idealism, on the other hand, holds that ideal realization is not 
foreign to reality, but in some way grows out of its inner 
developing nature. It insists that there must be another and 
more inclusive dimension of reaUty than that of mere natural 
sequence. 

True, materialism has always insisted that such a dimension 
is superfluous. But materialism makes far too great demands 
on our credulity : Reason grafted on chaos by chance variation, 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 339 

ideals superimposed upon the fortuitous play of atoms by 
accident, and this the truth, the absolute truth about it ! 
Far saner seems to me the attitude expressed by Plato in the 
Meno: ''That we shall be better and braver and less helpless 
if we think we ought to inquire, than we should have been if 
we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no use in knowing 
and no use in searching after what we know not; that is a 
theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to 
the utmost of my power." For must not the assumption that 
truth is an accident prove suicidal to materialism itself, in so 
far as it aims to be a philosophy? Metaphysical materialism, 
as much as idealism, is founded upon a faith in form. Democ- 
ritus, no less than Plato, assumes that the world is amenable 
to reason, though for the former the real truth is atoms and 
the void, for the latter the Idea of the Good. We must some- 
how provide for value and significance in our world. Else 
why philosophize ? If truth is an accident, if the flux of things 
has no direction, then truth and error, virtue and vice are the 
same, and it becomes as absurd to speak of a materialistic 
philosophy as of any other kind. The same accident that 
makes ideals can unmake them. I cannot conceive of truth 
as even an ideal Hmit in such a world. A sane cosmic theory, 
whatever metaphysical stuff it may assume, must admit that 
under certain conditions the universe awakens to the signifi- 
cance of truth and beauty, to the recognition of form and mean- 
ing. For such are the facts, whatever be the stuff of things. 

Without an objective form or direction, I do not see how 
validity can have any meaning. Such form is implied in our 
beliefs in validity and worth. It is confirmed by the very 
necessity, — the practical, as well as theoretical imperative- 
ness, — of these beHefs. Since Augustine, it is a common- 
place that we cannot argue truth or worth without assuming 
form. What if some one denies the possibility of validity? 
In such a case, all argument must stop. One opinion is no 
truer than another. Such a skeptic cannot criticize our argu- 
ment, our logic or science. For by his own mouth, he stands 
convicted that there is no false argument. If we confine him 
in an insane asylum, he cannot argue that we are unreasonable, 
however brutally he may resist, even as a lion may resist con- 



340 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

finement. He cannot blame our conduct in so doing. For 
on his own premises there is no right conduct, except what 
prevails; and we must be right if we prevail. He may insist 
that there is no beauty, but he cannot criticize us for regarding 
him as a bore, if we do have the feeling that he is a bore. 

Any theory of the universe, on the other hand, which dis- 
tinguishes degrees of validity, which holds that one state of 
conciousness may be better or truer than another, implicitly 
refers to a standard, a measure more comprehensive than each 
individual's momentary feehng or view-point. To deny this 
is to land in the contradictory impUcation of a standard more 
absolute than all, unless indeed we carry our skepticism to the 
extent of denying the validity of our skepticism and so commit 
intellectual suicide. We may lay it down then that all evalua- 
tion, skeptical or believing, impUes a standard, transcending 
the immediate moment and socially valid. But the question 
remains : How must we conceive this standard ? I see only two 
possibihties : We may assume with the absolute ideaUst a com- 
plete all-comprehensive, eternal experience. In this we must 
even now be sharers. We must move according to its logical 
necessity ; we must unravel its logical categories ; in the con- 
sciousness of its completeness, we must reaUze our finite frag- 
mentariness. I agree with Royce and his master, the divine 
Plato, that there can be no ideal of relativity. In a world 
where there is no other standard than that which seems to 
any consciousness for the moment, any dog-faced baboon or tad- 
pole would have as vaUd a claim as would the wisest of men. 
The possibiUty of error does imply an objective constitution. 
But an absolute and inclusive experience I do not feel compelled 
to assume. For me it is neither a logical necessity, nor does 
it answer my reHgious demands. If the universe is thus com- 
plete and perfect, it is difficult to see how our consciousness of 
fragmentariness and evil could ever arise. As the necessities 
of our existence call for adjustment to a world in which change 
and pluraHty with all their darkness play an important part, 
it is difficult to see of what practical use such a perspicuous 
hypothesis can be. 

If we take the universe, on the other hand, at its face value 
and acknowledge it for what it is, — a stream of processes with 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 341 

its novelty, failure and tragedy, — then we must conceive the 
standard in another manner. As this standard is not con- 
stituted by experience, individual or social ; as it cannot be 
regarded as an accidental product of the process, and yet can- 
not be merely external to the process, we must seek it in a 
form inherent in the process. If the process has a formal 
direction, dictating, not what can arise, but what can survive 
within the process, then the significance of the process as a 
whole, reflective or non-reflective, is guaranteed. And while 
we cannot read off an absolute truth when we do not have it, 
we have in this formal constitution a hmit which transcends 
our finite moments, and furnishes the possibihty of evaluating 
our finite degrees of truth and worth. The limit, as concretely 
posited by us, partakes, indeed, of the finitude of our positing ; 
but the consciousness of this limit, however it may vary in 
content with human experience, becomes a corrective none the 
less for our comparison. And on the reality of the Hmit must 
depend in the end all validity, however relative, of truth and 
worth. 

It is evident, therefore, that the concept of validity has a 
real basis only in a world which has form. If the process of the 
universe is merely a chance affair, no ideals can be enforced, 
or be binding whether mechanical or ethical. Science in such 
a world would have no guaranty for its ideals of simpHcity and 
unity any more than ethics for its ideals of worth. What 
keeps warm the passion for science is that in spite of the com- 
plexity of the world, growing ever more apparent in the course 
of new discoveries, the facts can be more and more sorted under 
common principles ; the Chinese puzzle of a world does seem to 
indicate that some parts belong together, and the faith in spite 
of failure ever springs up afresh in the truth seeker's breast 
that the rest will yield to the same ideals. 

Radical empiricism is impossible as an ultimate philosophy. 
It is true, as the radical empiricist has argued, that in such a 
world one postulate is as valid as another, — the ethical pos- 
tulate is as valid as the epistemological. But this is merely 
an argumentum ad hominem. On radical empiricism no ideal 
could be vaUd. Such a theory must derive the form from the 
variables, order from chance, validity from arbitrary agreement 



342 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

or from the fiat of individual will. But if validity is made, is 
a matter of convention merely, what objective coerciveness can 
it exercise, what standard can it furnish for the permanency of 
values ? The difficulty is not altered by selecting the race as the 
unit. Certain values prove permanent and necessary — not 
because the race has willed them — but because when the race 
in any of its members does will them or feel them, they prove 
themselves intrinsically superior or higher ; they set conditions 
of survival to the race because of the social unity and coopera- 
tion thus made possible. Because the formal conditions exist, 
therefore it becomes advantageous to discover them, — though 
they are, indeed, already impUed in the yearnings and aspira- 
tions which are a part of our nature. There can be no made-to- 
order validity. This would be accidental, and not universal. 
It could not give us the concept of progress, the limit of finality. 
Suppose we try to conceive our universe as without form. 
This is already a contradiction, for in such a world there could be 
no conception, no law, no meaning. To conceive is precisely 
to discover form. Such a chaos must in so far as we can include 
it in thought at all, be a limit derived from the relative absence 
of form, from the relative chaos of values, which we approximate 
in our inferior universes of conduct and appreciation. We can 
spread these out in a regressive series, and so reach as a Hmit 
the concept of formlessness. Could such a formless universe 
exist at all? It is not our business to make universes, but to 
try to discover the laws impHed in the constitution of the world 
as experienced. Certain it is, we cannot think such a universe 
as existent. Our mind is shaped for a universe of order. But 
while we cannot conceive a formless world as existent, form 
and flux are logically separable. Some lives are more formless 
than others, some attempts at thinking and appreciation more 
chaotic than others. Ideals do fail of realization for the time 
being — perhaps some always. Great personahties are cruci- 
fied, great artistic creation goes unnoticed, and is forgotten. 
This does not, however, invaHdate the reahty of ideals; and 
they prove themselves when they become part of the current 
of experience again. They may be eternal, even though existen- 
tially they do not for the time being prevail. Even though they 
are forgotten for a time, they still have worth. They may prove 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 343 

survival conditions in the sense that life or evolution fails 
because it does not grasp them, fails through its relative form- 
lessness. To have value, as well as to be survival conditions, 
they must be appreciated and thus willingly or purposefully 
conformed to. In the Hfe of a perfect being, the survival 
conditions thus become intrinsic. A perfect being has life in 
himself, he is intrinsically eternal. And not only this, but he 
can spread, or bring to birth in others, the consciousness of 
form, and thus create worth in others. 

Whether the time process has always been conscious of direc- 
tion is not the question. This, while genetically interesting, 
has nothing to do with the reality of direction. We have not 
always been conscious of space and time, and other char- 
acteristics of reality, but they have, none the less, conditioned 
behavior until we have acquired the tools for recognizing them. 
So direction must have existed before the consciousness of it, to 
give significance to process when we come to reflect; and for 
that matter, to bring about reflection. For why should we 
raise the question of form? If there was a time when reality 
was conscious of no meaning, it must at least have had a 
definite direction toward reason. The process must shoot into 
reflection by a law or tendency which reflection in retrospect 
can see to be inherent in the nature of the process, and not as 
a result of mere chance. Otherwise reason loses all validity 
as well as efficacy, and the mechanical ideal becomes merged 
with the rest in the general chaos. 

If it is the limit of an absolute direction that gives meaning 
to our finite and fleeting oughts, to our relative ideals, must not 
the hmit, then, be as real as the terms it limits? The straight 
line is surely as real as the varying curvatures of which it is 
the hmit. I am speaking here of reality, not of worth. The 
straight fine is worth more, or is more significant, than the 
multitudinous curves, but that is not the question here. If 
we grant the reality of our finite purposes, must we not grant 
also the reality of the limit which conditions their significance ; 
which prevents their being swamped in absolute relativity or 
brute chance? Must not direction, without which process is 
unintelligible, be as real as the process ? If it is helpful, more- 
over, to suppose that there is somehow in the universe such 



344 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

an ideal limit which regulates worth and survival; if even 
cosmic and biological evolution seem to involve such a direction 
to be intelligible ; if, when it becomes conscious of itself in 
man, it can make significant and legislate to facts and impulses ; 
if truth itself is more than an accident, and it is not a decep- 
tion that there can be approximation toward a whole of truth, 
goodness and beauty, then this limit cannot be merely our 
fiction, but must be involved in the constitution of the process. 
I cannot see how the pragmatic conception of truth can get 
along with less than this concept of absolute direction. If it 
implies that process is amenable to purposes and can be guided 
by purposes, that the test of ideals is their workableness, it 
must somehow account for the presence and place of purpose in 
the process. That the process is through and through reflective 
is a violation of the pragmatic principle itself, for there are surely 
some facts which we need not and cannot recognize as purposive. 
We seem, therefore, to be in a dilemma : Either we must accept 
materialism, that ideals are accidents and have no efficacy 
in the process; or we must hold with absolute idealism that 
there is no process, but that the universe is one complete 
whole, the purpose eternally fulfilled. In the former case, 
truth becomes merely an illusion. In the latter, truth becomes 
inaccessible, and the world as we have it is illusion. The only 
way we can steer safely between the Scylla of materiaUsm and 
the Charybdis of static idealism is by keeping before our minds 
the concept of direction. This makes purposive significance 
possible without stopping the universe. It also pieces out the 
ideal beyond our finite purposes, instead of making it a mere 
unaccountable fragment in the process without any setting in 
the universe as a whole. 

Form and Ethical Realization 

We estimate the ethical worth of life by its form, its direction. 
This direction must not be a mere function of what each in- 
dividual desires. To make the satisfaction of impulse its own 
criterion would destroy all criteria. For impulse is legion, and 
Hfe would resolve itself into a chaos of conflicting desires; 
into what seems to each individual moment. If satisfaction 
is the test of worth, then whose satisfaction, that of the pig or 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 345 

the man, the fool or Socrates? The worst tragedy of all 
perhaps is that some are satisfied when they ought not to be. 
The optimism that the satisfaction of impulse is a sufficient 
standard presupposes a preestablished harmony between in- 
clination and right, the individual and the whole, the present 
and the future, which has not been attained and which can only 
come by the accommodation of impulse to a standard more 
objective than itself. The limit which in the end determines 
worth must itself be independent of impulse. That definite 
lines of conduct exist must somehow be due to it. This is 
real ideahsm, as opposed to naturalism under whatever guise, 
spiritualistic or materialistic. Naturalism makes the Ought 
a mere function of what is. On the contrary, it must legislate 
to that which is. What pleases may not be what ought to 
please, and if we indulge in tendencies that ought not to please 
us, a standard, objective to ourselves, forced upon us by the 
cosmic process, must sooner or later condemn us. 

It has been held that the ideal must be the outgrowth and 
index of impulse ; else there could be no false judgments. But 
how could there be either true or false judgments if impulse is 
its own criterion? These involve a reference to a constitution 
beyond impulse. They imply an objective form. We must, 
of course, admit that ideals appear at a certain stage in the 
biological series ; but when they appear, they appear as leaps, 
as new ways of evaluation, not as mere products of the past. 
Why do such leaps rather than others prove to have permanent 
significance ? This must be because the universe somehow has 
a direction of its own. It is not accounted for by mere chance. 
If ideals cannot pass upon impulses unless they grow out of them, 
they surely cannot do so if they merely grow out of them. They 
must have their own credentials. Strange that thinkers who 
ridicule Plato for hypostasizing the Idea of the Good, which 
when properly understood is more than an hypostasis, should 
find it so easy to hypostasize the mechanical ideal of atoms and 
molecules. 

To say with the Hegelians that the ideal is already implicit 
or potential in the impulses must mean very much the same 
thing, if it means anything. That impulses are good or bad is 
hardly implied in the impulses. The question of worth can 



346 REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

arise only when impulses are evaluated according to an objective 
standard. That the impulsive satisfaction has worth in the 
end is not due to its being desired, but that it fits an objective 
constitution, present and future. This gives "immortal in- 
tent" to the process. That the eternally prudent may be 
sacrifice, that what it aims at cannot as such survive, can be 
no part of short-sighted impulse. 

Hedonism, when sorely pressed, must have recourse to ''on 
the whole and in the long run," not realizing that it thus 
abandons satisfaction or pleasure as the ultimate standard, 
and substitutes a selective constitution. It is this, and not the 
mere subjective satisfaction or dissatisfaction, which decides 
what structures can survive and therefore what pleasiu-es can 
survive. 

Neither does self-realization furnish a final standard. Con- 
sistently stated, it is simply natural history, not ethics. Practi- 
cally, it would mean the riot of absolute individualism. Perhaps 
the most picturesque statement of this doctrine is the speech of 
Aristophanes in Plato's '' Symposium." The myth of the division 
of the double men and double women and the men-women and 
each half longing for the other, signifies that love, or the yearn- 
ing of the soul, means self-completion or the attaining of one's 
own, the complement of one's being. We must not, however, 
neglect the quaHtative difference in selves. There are many 
types of selves, and each type desires its own fulfillment. If 
self-reahzation is to be the criterion of life, what self is to be 
reahzed, the baboon self, the pig self, or what sort of self? If 
all but human selves are to be excluded, what sort of human self? 
Not the criminal self nor the insane self, surely ? Only a normal 
self could be the standard. As Plato says : "He must be a wise 
man who is a measure." But what is normal? 

Psychologically viewed, the ego may sometimes aim to realize 
or define itself. It may aim to realize social institutions. It 
does aim to realize its own tendencies, egoistic and social. 
But what determines the worth of the activity is not the mere 
reaUzation of tendencies, but its conformity to the ideals of 
the race and ultimately to the direction of history. Perhaps 
such a self has no business to be. Its whole universe or per- 
spective may be sordid and mean, its complement brutal. In 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 347 

that case, the ethical process is not self-reahzation, but the 
eUmination of that type of ego. The doctrine of self-reaHza- 
tion, tacitly at least, assumes a preestabHshed harmony between 
the ideals of the individual and the whole, or that if each one 
desires his own realization he at the same time desires the good 
of the whole. Such a fallacy could only be maintained by such 
ambiguous shiftings as that between the real good as opposed 
to the apparent, the true to the actual, the eternal to the tem- 
poral, in all of which it takes no great insight to see that there 
is a reference to a constitution beyond the individual ego. 

Biologically, self-realization can hardly be seriously main- 
tained as a final standard. We have become so constituted, 
as a result of the demands of the universe upon us, that we re- 
spond in certain ways. To look out for ourselves is only one of 
the many demands that are made upon us. Our adjustment 
in the nature of things is largely institutional, and must become 
more so, as a result both of biological and social heredity. To 
fit into institutions, present and future, must therefore be the 
biological test of an ego worth preserving. The test in the end is 
extra-individual. And as institutions are also subject to the 
law of survival, the test becomes extra-institutional as well. It 
again impHes the attribute of direction. A man, moreover, 
who should be as self-conscious as the self-realization theory 
demands would be a pretty sickly sort of specimen. Not self- 
completion, but the yearning for an objective Good, to refer 
to Plato again, is true realization. 

The fallacy of the doctrine of self-realization, in spite of much 
that is noble in its appeal, is that it takes human nature as an 
absolute entity. The fact is that human nature is essentially 
in the making, and that it differs in quaHty in different individ- 
uals, and at different stages of development. Primitive man, 
so far from being a httle lower than the angels, was not much 
above the brutes. The finer instincts and emotions have devel- 
oped by degrees through social selection. And the process of 
making man in the image of God, shaped to live with his kind 
in justice and love, is still going on, and must go on for countless 
ages. There are a few individuals of exceptional nobleness of 
quality, whose reaHzation seems supremely worth while ; these are 
prophetic of humanity to come, and their greatness lies in divin- 



348 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

ing and incarnating the universal of the race. True reahzation 
must mean a better social order, an improved humanity, a 
higher type of pei*sonaUty. It cannot be written in merely ego- 
centric terms, but has its base in a progressive humanity, and 
in the cosmic order of which humanity is a part. It is here that 
the standard must be found in the last analysis. Impelled by 
a faith which we can but dimly understand — a faith which has 
led the race through a long past in search of the promise — we 
must be wilhng to risk and sacrifice for this greater humanity, 
whatever may be our personal fortunes. Out of such stuff is 
progress made. 

Since Spencer's time it has been fashionable to speak of 
ideal activity as adjustment. It is not always clear what the 
adjustment is to. It must be to some sort of environment. 
But what is the environment to which the soul must adjust 
itself? It is not merely present sense-perceptions, surely. The 
adjustment must be to the future as well as to the present. It 
must be capable of being taken up into the cumulative move- 
ment of history. The present ideal attitudes must fit into the 
future process of Hfe. To hold that the ideal is at each stage 
of the process a mere function of the is, the result of the acci- 
dental shooting together of the various tendencies of human 
nature, and also hold that it has the right to control and evaluate 
these tendencies, is even more incredible than the materialistic 
statement that the ideal is a mere epiphenomenon, irrelevant 
to the going on of the real process. But the latter bankrupts 
all truth seeking and all ideal endeavor. Epiphenomenon is 
after all only a technical name for a he. Why should the pro- 
cess produce something which does not express its real nature, 
has nothing to do with its existence, an unaccountable illusion ? 

Neither can we find a final standard, as some maintain, in 
the consensus of hkes and disUkes. It is true that the most 
important part of the adjustment of civihzed man is to the 
institutional ideals and customs of the race. These furnish a 
provisional measuring rod for individual hfe. But social agree- 
ment, while on the whole a safer test than individual desire, 
is not absolute. Can any thinking man be satisfied in merely 
obeying the oracle of Delphi, "to worship the gods according 
to the laws of the land"? Socrates may have meant to do so, 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 349 

but the Athenians were right, that he introduced strange gods, 
— new ideals hostile to their conventions. Every institutional 
embodiment of form is relative. 

Nor can individual reason furnish an absolute criterion, 
however important in recognizing the relativity of our concrete 
ideals and the need of a standard. Sometimes, indeed, the 
individual is wiser than society. Else there could be no prog- 
ress. As Heraclitus says : ^^ It is the law, too, that we obey 
the counsel of one." But individual reason at best is dependent 
upon its historic setting. It is limited by the axioms of its 
immediate social nexus, the ideals and sentiments of the age. 
It finds that reasonable to which it is accustomed. It easily 
finds arguments for the stake or the golden rule, the Inquisition 
or the French Revolution, according to its setting. An appeal 
to pure reason cannot lift us above the relativity of history. 
The rational self Kke 'Hhe economic man" or *'the average 
individual" is a convenient fiction. At most, it is an ideal limit 
to which we can give a general form, but no content. If it 
exists now, it must dip in, like Emerson's Oversoul, from a 
superindividual sphere. It if does so infiltrate under favorable 
conditions, it can only be apprehended in terms of our concrete 
experience, and so the apprehension of it becomes finite and 
relative. It is not a separate compartment in our mundane 
self, ^'unspotted from the world." 

Even if there is a more comprehensive reason than human 
reason ; granting that such a reason can know the total object 
of science, the present constitution of things, with its laws and 
uniformities, in a real time world such as ours, such a reason 
is hmited. It could not, except hypothetically, read off the 
future. Its attitudes toward the future must be pragmatic 
postulates; and nothing would seem more certain than the 
transformation of present values. Even such a reason would 
presuppose direction, beside present omniscience for the validity 
of its judgments. Its judgments would have to fit into the 
future, as well as into the present, to be absolutely true. How 
much more evident must it be that our reason does not constitute 
its own world, present and future! We cannot now be said 
to mean what we do not mean ; and when a richer meaning 
supplants the poorer and more selfish, that is not because we 



350 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

meant more than we meant or because we wanted failure when 
we sought success. Paradoxes do not explain. We must take 
account of the creative aspect of the process. In the process 
as we become more deeply conscious of its formal demands, 
the superficiality of our former insights comes to light. If we 
learn modesty in regard to truth as we have it, that is not be- 
cause we know more than we know, or possess an absolute truth, 
but because we have learned from the past that our truth, 
however satisfying for the time, is provisional. There is a 
constitution which transcends our purposes, whether individ- 
ual or social. This selects or eliminates in the course of the 
process. 

Evolution and Direction 

A generation ago, in the first enthusiasm of Darwin's dis- 
covery, evolution seemed the magic key to all mysteries. But 
the criterion of the survival of the fittest has meaning only 
when we define what environment is intended. Otherwise it 
amounts merely to saying that what does survive is fit. If 
we mean by fitness, conformity to a temporary environment, 
then it may indeed happen that under certain conditions, the 
inferior is better adapted to survive. The hostile micro- 
organisms which get the better of us in disease and death would 
thus prove themselves our superiors. 

Evolution, therefore, must derive its meaning from the con- 
ception of direction. Even such fragmentary cumulation of 
significance, as we find, would otherwise be meaningless, for we 
could have no reason for supposing that the later is any better 
or truer than the earlier, even on the whole and in the long 
run, or that the process ought to be read one way rather than 
the other, unless we assume such a cumulative direction. This 
is the real measure of the process. The prerational stages 
of the process, whether individual or racial, cosmic or human, 
would be irrelevant to reason unless they somehow prefigured 
or were prophetic of reason, i.e. unless they had form. That 
there shall be reason cannot be an accident, if we can reason 
about things. When at last man awakes from the long slumber 
of the ages, pregnant with tendencies which ages of selection 
have forced upon him independently of his individual will, "he 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 351 

lays his hand on his bosom and feels it is warm with a flame 
out of heaven" — a yearning for that which, for our present 
consciousness, is not and yet gives meaning and value to that 
which is. It is this which makes the time process ever mean more 
than it knows — not its wisdom, but rather that in spite of 
its bhndness it comes to fit into a larger pattern. This makes 
the present, in so far as it is meaningful, fulfill the past in so 
far as it has form ; and as the checkered web of the time pro- 
cess emerges out of its instinctive darkness into the future, 
this formal constitution furnishes the warp which insures a 
imified whole. 

This form or direction is not originated with reflection. 
Reflection cannot create this demand for meaning and unity, 
for it presupposes this very demand. It is not a wiU attitude. 
If it were, it would be subject to the law of change, and so could 
not furnish the absolute limit of our striving. It is not the 
result of experience, because experience only comes to have 
meaning and value with reference to it. Neither can time 
create it, for time has no direction, knows no ideal. It can 
but transmute endlessly that which is, each after its kind. 
What shall survive, if anything but chaos, must be left to 
another principle. For ''time," as Herachtus has so strikingly 
put it, '4s a child playing draughts." In the flux of process, 
individual desire and social institutions, intuition and reflec- 
tion, prove ahke relative. What remains is only the direction. 
This must be real, else there is no meaning. This is the onto- 
logical limit of truth and worth, forced upon the individual by 
the constitution of reahty and the necessities of life, not a 
mere ideal positing. Provisionally, we may regard our demands 
for meaning and worth as biological categories. They do appear 
in the evolutionary^ process. They are involved in race ex- 
perience, and have been forced upon us by race survival. But 
this only pushes the question back. Why are they conditions 
of race survival? For we must look at these conditions not 
only from the point of view of the individual, but of the whole 
process. They must somehow be involved in the formal 
constitution of reahty throughout the time process, thus to 
condition reflection and life ahke. They are the manifestations 
or incarnations in history of that eternal form, which is with 



352 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

US always from nebula to society, for even the astronomer 
and the geologist insist that their facts are amenable to cate- 
gories of form. 

If you ask how such a formal constitution can condition the 
process of evolution, and yet not be energy, I would point out 
on the one hand, that if we must assume such a constitution in 
order to make experience intelligible, then it must exist. And, 
on the other hand, I would point to other attributes of reality 
which, though not energy, do definitely condition the world 
of energetic reactions. Such an attribute for example we have 
found pure space to be with its condition of distance. We have 
exaggerated the importance of causal or quantitative determina- 
tions. We are familiar in human experience with other types 
of determination, logical, ethical, and aesthetic, which are more 
fundamental for human relations. The brute force of an in- 
dividual or a group is less essential to social survival than 
teleological fitness, the capacity for organization. And in 
the cosmic process, in the large, formal determination may be 
more essential to the survival of structures than brute quantity. 
But if form is not a cause, how can it make a difference to our 
world of process? We may find hints in our own social evolu- 
tion of how form may become efficacious. It is not the vocifer- 
ousness of the argument or the quantitative mass of the art 
work that makes them prevail in our human experience. What 
makes them win us over and determine our conduct and appre- 
ciation is that they fit into the formal requirements of our 
mental constitution and bring this into clearer relief. The 
survival of man, or at least his standing in organized society, 
consists in adopting or imitating certain forms, certain types 
of conduct — conventional, legal, ethical, religious, etc. The 
forms as such have no causal efficacy. Their efficacy comes 
from their coerciveness upon the will of the group. In imitating 
them, the member of the group survives, so far as the special 
demands of that group are concerned. A whole group, again, 
may be destroyed by another group which has a superior or- 
ganization. Form thus figures as an aspect of efficient action, 
though it is not as an abstraction efficacious. We strive for 
it because it is implied in our structure. 

While it is not necessary that the producer, be he artist. 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 353 

scientist, or reformer, be explicitly conscious of form, yet the 
critic in examining his work can see that such formal demands 
are realized. The creative result is approved, whether by 
contemporaries or by posterity, not because of the mechanical 
tools employed or the psychological attitude of the particular 
producer or spectator, but because they conform to the formal 
postulates, which the producer imitated or brought to expression. 
We do not ask : Was the producer conscious of the form ? 
We only ask : Does the result conform ? The formal survival 
has to do, not with the method of production, but with the 
acceptabihty of the unities produced. If they fail to get the 
approval of the race, they may perhaps survive as raw material 
for fresh attempts, as Ibsen's button molder proposes to melt 
up worthless human Hfe in his ladle, but they cannot persist 
as formal unities, whether science, art, or social institutions. 

If there is in the universe a perfect Socius, an omniscient 
selective activity, with power commensurate with his formal 
demands, then we can see how in nature and the universe at 
large, as well as in race history, form can be a category of sur- 
vival. As forms, only those unities would survive, in the long 
run of his patience, which he approves. Such a being would 
guarantee that universal efficacy of form in the cosmos which 
we implicitly postulate. Thus the universe, while, in the 
concrete and actual, it cannot be said to be a whole, would be 
guaranteed potentially as a whole, or at any rate wholes would 
be guaranteed within it; for only certain organizations of 
energy would prevail as acceptable. The values which we 
imply in all our ideahzing activity, logical, aesthetic, ethical, 
could be potentially or virtually guaranteed even now, for only 
those structures which imitate, or are in the direction of, this 
selective activity would survive. 

Whatever may be the coerciveness of such a faith, it is a fact 
that cannot be gainsaid that architecture or form must be taken 
account of as a condition of stability or instability in the world 
as we know it. In the case of chemical compounds, some pro- 
portions of elements are stable, some are unstable. Hydrogen 
and oxygen have a high degree of stability in the combining 
relation of water, while in other proportions they enter into the 
most unstable of compounds. The difference here is not in the 



354 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

elements themselves, but in the numerical ratio, which, therefore, 
must be regarded as a factor. Even more striking is nature's 
respect for architecture in the case of organic structures. 
Mendel's law shows how jealous nature is of the preservation 
of the type. Cross-breeding of types either leads to sterihty, 
where the types constitute remote species ; or where they are 
less variant, leads to segregation of the original characters thus 
blended and the reestablishing of the original types. Thus 
nature enforces a certain simplicity of form where otherwise 
would exist endless chaos. The same tendency might be illus- 
trated in the history of ideal activity, as in the aesthetic and 
institutional structures of the race, where again definite types 
tend to prevail, giving direction to what would otherwise be 
promiscuous individual variations. 

The world of change and external contiguity can to a degree, 
even in our finite selective activity, be taken up into contexts 
of meaning and validity. This process of taking over the 
brute world, with its mechanical uniformities, is going on in 
science, art, and institutions with their selective survival 
conditions, however Umited may be the results. That such a 
selection is a fact, a normal fact of the functioning of the 
universe, and that it points to a formal constitution of which 
we must become conscious and which individual insight must 
seize upon, if it would be immortal, we also reahze from human 
experience. No human convention can make a poem or a 
painting immortal. It must be such intrinsically by antici- 
pating the universal, which social and individual experience 
aUke must acknowledge. It must be true to a form which 
eternally exists, unmoved by change, in order to constitute worth 
and eternity within change. Such a constitution must have 
been ever operative, or it could not be operative now. As 
formal selection is genuinely effective in the case of one part of 
reality, it cannot be an accident, but must be regarded as an 
expression of the universe. And why should we suppose that 
the form waits on human wills alone for being operative? Is 
it not easier to suppose that somehow this formal selection is 
always going on in the cosmos, subjecting the thing-order to 
the order of ideals, and that our acknowledgment and our 
significant activity is prepared for and a part of this cosmic 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 355 

selection? Why should we not trust our faith in the formal 
categories as we trust our faith in the mechanical? 

The One and The Many 

The perennial problem of the one and the many finds its 
only intelligible solution in the recognition of such a direction. 
The dialectic as to whether the universe is really one, and the 
many an illusion — or whether it is really many, and the unity 
an illusion — has been waged long, though usually with blood- 
less damage to both sides. The atomists of all types, whether 
believers in the quantitative entities of Democritus, or in the 
spiritual monads of Leibniz or the qualities of Herbart, have 
found it necessary to account for the apparent unity as arbi- 
trary and seeming. The monists again, from Parmenides down, 
have been equally forced to sacrifice the apparent plurahty 
within the world. Brave souls who have had more respect for 
the facts than for logical consistency have compromised and 
admitted both the one and the many with varying emphasis 
according to their pecuUar bias. One thing is certain, that 
on the basis of a static conception of the world, the problem of 
the one and the many remains as impossible as ever. 

Nor is a dynamic conception of the world by itself any more 
satisfactory. That the universe is process or transformation 
does not tell us anything about its relative unity or plurahty. 
Process in itself may mean greater chaos as well as greater unity. 
It furnishes no guaranty one way or the other. It tells us 
nothing in so far as it is a mere time process about its whither. 
Still we insist that our world shall be a whole and not a mere 
chaos. This is the eternal inspiration of scientific research 
as well as of practical life. Yet how ridiculously meager is 
the evidence for our faith. Kleinpeter tells us that his master, 
Mach, proceeds inductively as regards this unity, while 
philosophy proceeds deductively. Have the fair maiden's 
dreams of love, and her golden hair flying in the breeze, and the 
prairie zephyrs all been comprehended within one inductive 
unity? That they ever will be so is an audacious dream. 

We are agreeing now that if there is to be unity it must 
be a teleological unity. The dust storm can be understood 
as one with love's fair dream only when they can be seen as 



356 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

part of one converging purpose. Plato felt his way toward 
such a teleological unity when he crowned his hierarchj- of 
Ideas with the Idea of the Good. But the djTiamic cement 
of process was lacking, and the loose stones would not hold 
together. If we assume the attribute of direction, it seems to 
me we shall have the necessar}' regulative principle. Granting, 
on the one hand, a universe of flux with ever new variations, 
and, on the other, an objective form, selective or legislative to 
this flux, in eliminating those transmutations which do not fit 
its direction — granting this not only as an experiential, but 
as a cosmic principle, and a degree of unity at any one time 
would be guaranteed, and in the long run, the successive stages 
of the process would show cumulative significance, with a 
backward and a forward reference. Such a universe, too, with 
its original diversity of stuff to be transformed, with the possi- 
bihty of ever fresh variations, not precluded by such unifor- 
mity as exists in the transmutations — such a universe would 
also account for the outstanding pluraUty and opaqueness 
in any given stage of the process. And as the process, more- 
over, is as eternal as the direction, the plurahsm could not 
disappear, though it might grow more articulate here and there, 
and so make disjunctive judgments of the future more possible. 
The conception of immortahty as the persistence of indi\'idual 
unit}', can be given real meaning only if we assume the attribute 
of direction. Mere existence, and the tendency to persist in 
esse suo cannot guarantee immortahty. The question is not, 
does an indi\'idual desire to persist ? Or does he have a specific 
content? But is he worthy to persist? Is the content sig- 
nificant? In the history- of art and institutions, as well as in 
the historj^ of thought, we learn that only those structures and 
contents which fit into the future of the process can survive. 
But if worth is to be a condition of survival, the process must 
be fundamentally selective. It must have direction. 

The Ought 

We may define the Ought as the consciousness of the form- 
character of the universe. As the chord in music has its form ; 
and as each movement of the sjTnphony, as well as the s\Tn- 
phony as a whole, has its form, so we may think of the total 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 357 

movement of cosmic evolution as having its unique form, giving 
direction and unity in the large, to its totality of interlocking 
parts. It is the law of the whole of which we finite parts be- 
come gradually conscious in our ideal activity, as we strive 
to understand and to appreciate the world of which we are the 
more or less articulate expression. In our imperfect finite 
development, this law of the whole, as striven for by our will, 
must necessarily appear as an Ought. 

For purely theoretical purposes, a constitution which should 
select automatically and unconsciously on the basis of form, 
might satisfy our requirements. That such cosmic selection 
is going on, is shown by the very fact that reason is at home 
in the world, and that laws can be formulated in a world of 
flux. For ethical and religious purposes, however, we seem to 
require more than an automatic constitution. We need the 
sense of comradeship, the sympathetic participation by the 
larger world in our fleeting and disproportionate striving. We 
need to feel, not only that the universe enforces an impersonal 
order, but that, somehow, a power greater than ourselves, 
and representing the more of our best, helps us to realize our 
creative destiny.^ Just because reality is characterized by 
change, and is in some degree plastic, it becomes possible con- 
sciously so to direct this transformation, whether as regards 
our individual or our collective fives, as to meliorate the past, 
and atone in part for its failures. And because the process is 
cumulative, and our imperfect efforts must enter into the 
creative process of the future, and there find their correction 
and supplementation, it becomes possible to approximate 
in the historic process towards a more perfectly realized form. 
This, moreover, our religious faith makes real to us as a present 
companionship with a perfect Socius, stimulating our best and 
atoning in some measure, through its regenerative influence, 
for our worst. Such a being makes real and concrete to our 
imagination and emotion the objectivity of the Ought. 

The faith in such a selective process furnishes a sufficient 
guarantee for our ideal striving. This is not a mere Utopian 
or laissez faire optimism. There is real evil in the world, real 
maladjustments, false viewpoints. But though the wicked 

1 See "The Function of Religion," the Biblical World, August, 1915. 



358 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

flourish like a green bay tree, their type shall not prevail. 
The servant of Jehovah shall eventually triumph, though per- 
haps through labor and suffering. The righteous remnant 
shall survive and inherit the kingdom. Only the just state can 
maintain itself. And because the mills of the gods grind 
exceeding fine, though perhaps slowly, we can afford to be 
tolerant, and to wait. **Let the tares grow with the wheat 
until the harvest." And the harvest is the sifting by the pro- 
gressive process itself. In view of our ignorance of the future, 
our motto, just as far as our decent hving together permits, 
should be : Judge not. Let it be. The divine direction of 
history will see to it, in the struggle of ideals, that the superficial 
and ephemeral are eliminated. Thus man can labor and wait with 
confidence as regards the final outcome. And if he is made of 
the right kind of stuff, he will be wilhng to have his own ideals, 
yea, even himself, ehminated if unworthy to survive. In this 
willingness, at least, he will prove his superiority to chance. 

Will the kingdom-not-of-this-world and the kingdom-of- 
this-world ever be one; will stuff and form, the traveler and 
the path, ever blend into one unity? Will the third kingdom, 
prophesied by Ibsen in liis "Emperor and GaUlean," the 
kingdom of God-Caesar or Caesar-God, ever be a finished 
actuahty? Not while the world is process. So long as there 
are transformations, so long must the mills of the gods grind, 
and so long will the content and meaning of the world be ever 
new. No, to make circumstance plastic in the service of the 
Ought is the task and the joy, too, of life, at least of healthy 
life. The real other, the completer life, is not an absolute 
system of truth which we now possess and intentionally hide 
for the purposes of the dialectic game; but the yet unborn, 
the insight we have not seen. Any theory which ignores this 
must make history and duty a mere farce. The universe is 
process, but through the process the selective direction sets the 
conditions of survival and meaning. 

There will always be tired souls, who want rest above all 
other things ; but this must be a rest which the world cannot 
give, a rest in seeking and reahzing the ideal. The satisfaction 
we now seek may itself, in a further stage of the process, be seen 
to be relative and unworthy. To stop at that would be lazy, 



FORM AND THE OUGHT 359 

cowardly, and immoral. The real satisfaction lies ever beyond 
in the completer Ufe. Art tries to steal from the fleeting 
moments their meaning, and to frame it; and it rests us for 
a moment. But this satisfaction, too, is relative. The songs of 
our childhood satisfy our soul no more. The satisfaction of the 
Greek world is not our satisfaction. 

The only way, finally, which I can serve the eternal Ought 
is by serving for the time being the Ought incarnated in my 
meaning and in human history. To quote Heraclitus again, 
"It is not meet to act and speak Hke men asleep." We are 
here to think and to create. Whether we are awake or asleep, 
whether we think or dream away life, we are subject to the law 
of change and the law of direction. But if we think, we may 
enter into the eternal in some degree by striving to understand 
the direction of things, and by guiding our Kves accordingly; 
we may become creators instead of mere bubbles on the stream. 
By acting out my best purposes, by Kving my highest insight, 
there shall come, perhaps through failure, perhaps through 
partial success, how I do not know, new insight, new capacity 
for work, love, and appreciation. The guiding power of the 
universe will see to it, if we are sincere, that we do not per- 
manently miss the course in the foggy unknown. But our 
illumination must be the Ought as now incarnated in human 
history. The next incarnation will come in the fullness of 
time. The voice out of the dark is enough for the next step. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Teleological Idealism 

The question about the whence and whither of the drift of 
our cosmic weather is an old one and cannot be hghtly brushed 
aside. It is both a forced and a momentous issue. It is a 
forced issue because we cannot help taking an attitude towards 
it, whether we make it expUcit to ourselves or not. It is momen- 
tous because such an attitude is a serious index of our deepest 
practical faith as regards the value of life, and cannot help 
determining our conduct. There have been three distinct 
types of theory in the past as regards this drift, — mechanism, 
finalism and vitaUsm. 

I. Theories of Evolution 

Mechanism. — In considering mechanism we must be care- 
ful not to be misled by the name, which is after all but a figure 
of speech. The view of the scientific naturahst of to-day has 
little in common with the mechanical theory of the eighteenth 
century. His interest, as must always be the case with science, 
is in efficient causes, and in so far he is not committed to 
any special type of metaphysics. He is but trying to discover 
the determining factors in the series of dynamic situations 
that occur in experience. As regards the constitution of these 
situations he is not necessarily an abstract atomist. It is 
true that the atomic hypothesis in chemistry and Mendel's 
theory of unit characters in biology have proved highly con- 
venient in studying chemical and biological processes, but 
recent scientific research has shown that such an atomism, if 
taken in the abstract, breaks down. The MendeHan units, 
for example, are not effective as abstract elements. They figure 
within dynamic situations which they enable us to predict. 
Sometimes two unit characters may figure as one for the pur- 
pose of prediction. In any case we must take account of the 

360 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 361 

dynamic context in order to have satisfactory explanation. This 
is equally true of other biological abstractions, such as sex 
determinants. They are only efficient in the situations in 
which they figure and which we cannot afford to ignore. The 
mechanical view, in the science of the present day, amounts to 
this, that in the case of life as well as in the inorganic world 
we must examine the chemical constitution of the process. We 
must analyze the dynamic situation into its chemical factors 
and their positional values. The effects of the presence or 
absence of these factors must be discovered, their quantitative 
variations in the situations under experimental control must 
be studied, and the effects of external conditions noted. There 
is no metaphysical short cut to an understanding of the pro- 
cess of life, any more than to an understanding of other dynamic 
processes. 

As for the unique chemical compounds which pertain to 
living organisms, natural science, accepting them as facts, as it 
accepts other actual compounds, is inclined to assume conti- 
nuity as between the organic and the inorganic, and to reduce 
the difference to one of complexity. The chemist's success 
in artificially producing "organic'' substances in the laboratory, 
— a success which has been ever increasing since the organic 
compound of urea was artificially produced a century or more 
ago — has stimulated the naturalist to believe that it may 
hereafter be possible to produce living organisms out of what 
we call inorganic elements, or at any rate our failure to do so 
in the past may be due to our ignorance and not to any inherent 
absurdity in the idea. 

Now if the attitude of mechanism be understood in this 
naturalistic sense, nothing can be said against its procedure. 
Its results in successsful prediction have been truly marvel- 
ous, considering the short time for which the method has been 
seriously tried. The revising of special hypotheses must be 
dictated by the facts, not by any a priori objections. Thus it 
is now generally recognized that the Darwinian hypothesis of 
natural selection, epoch making as it was and useful as it still 
is, is only a partial account of the facts. Natural selection is a 
negative factor in evolution. As Driesch puts it, to regard 
natural selection ''as a positive factor in descent would be to 



362 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

confound the sufficient reason for the non-existence of what is 
not with the sufficient reason of what is." The positive ground 
for variation and continuity must be found within the process. 

The only question that can be raised as to the mechanistic 
hypothesis is whether it is adequate as an ultimate philosophy. 
Can this external and seemingly blind dynamism account for 
the direction of the process, and for the outcome as we find it 
in the higher stages of life? Can we read the whole history of 
the universe solely in terms of the categories which have proven 
so convenient on the simpler levels of existence ? The postulate 
of continuity should apply, it would seem, as well when read 
from above down as when read from below up. And, after all, 
we have a much more intimate knowledge of processes and their 
implications in the highest stages, of which our will and ideals 
are a part, than we can ever possess of the dynamism of the 
lower stages of nature. In the former case we have a first-hand 
acquaintance with the inner transitions and unities ; in the latter 
we are at best outside and speculative spectators. 

Finalism. — FinaUsm, as opposed to mechanism, has always 
taken the point of view that we must judge evolution by its out- 
come, its last stages. We know the potentiahties of the acorn 
when we have seen it grow up as the oak, of the child when its 
capacities are displayed in the grown man. So we must know 
natm'e by its outcome in our striving for ideals. Under the theory 
of mechanism, the process is accounted for by the factors dis- 
coverable in the previous stage of the sequence, together with 
the external conditions which play upon them ; for finalism the 
causality lies in the future, in the prospective value of the 
process. 

For working out this view we must go back to Plato and 
Aristotle as models. In opposition to the naturalistic method 
of their day, they insisted that evolution must be explained 
by its purpose, the Idea, or form, to which it tends. The two 
Greek thinkers differ somewhat in details, but Plato must be 
regarded as the original master of this type of view. 

For Plato the world of sense, the existence of which he does 
not deny, is a poor effort to copy a world of eternal Ideas. 
These alone are real. On this theory of a copy, Plato is driven 
to assume that there are as many Ideas not only as there are 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 363 

ideals and class types, but as there are individuals and types 
of relations. This forces him eventually to regard mathematics 
as the type of the real, since only here can he find ideal possibili- 
ties adequate to the originals of the distorted shadows which 
make up the phenomenal world. With this phenomenal world 
Plato manifests a poetic impatience. He would not trouble 
himself so much with the mechanism of movement, so im- 
portant to Aristotle. He would go directly to the end, which 
is the Good. Aristotle, while he largely copies his master, 
places more confidence in the world of actual process, in the 
potentiahties of matter. The concrete process is the first 
reality. But this process finds its explanation in the conception 
of a goal, its final cause. Here shows the artistic consciousness 
of the Greek ; Hfe and nature, too, work as the artist. In either 
of these views the end is conceived as the moving cause. *'It 
is the conception of a thing which produces motion alike in works 
of nature and of art. Only man can beget man. Only the 
conception of health can determine the physician in producing 
health. In hke manner we shall find in the highest cause which 
is God, the pure form, the ultimate end of the world and the 
source of its movement united in one." ^ 

But obviously the end cannot be conceived to be consciously 
present in the case of the lower processes. How can they then 
develop in the direction of their characteristic activities? In 
other words, how can the form be effective? Since God is 
the goal and the final cause of the movement of the universe, 
how does God act upon the world? Here Aristotle wavers 
between two methods. He sometimes speaks in quite mechani- 
cal terms. God gives a push from without to the outer circle 
of the universe, and thus makes it move. But the more char- 
acteristic method of Aristotle is to look upon God as self-con- 
tained activity and bliss, moving the world by his perfection. 
The beloved does not need to do anything to the lover ; for the 
lover is moved by the beauty of the beloved. So the universe 
moves because it desires perfection. ^ This perfection, more- 

1 Quoted from Zeller, "Aristotle," Vol. I, pp. 356, 357. 

2 In Zeller's paraphrase of Aristotle: "God moves the world in this way: 
The object of desire and the object of thought cause motion without moving 
themselves. But these motive forces are ultimately the same (the absolute 
object of thought is the absolutely desirable, or pure good) ; for the object of 



364 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

over, is different for different classes; vegetable, animal, or 
human, each moves to realize its own proper function, its 
characteristic soul. 

Hence, it is necessary, in order to explain the diversity of the 
process, to assume in addition to God a multiplicity of forms, — 
entelechies, or conceptions. Just what relation these bear to 
the final form, God, Aristotle does not tell us ; he takes them 
for granted from experience. His faith in the concrete process, 
however, gives him the advantage that he can regard the pro- 
cess itself as really moving, and also that he can make this 
concrete process bear part of the responsibilit5^ Thus the 
individuality of the process is due not to its form but to its 
matter. Hence, forms are genera, not particulars. Here, 
again, his solution of the problem is tantalizingly vague. And, 
naturally, he has little to say about immortaUty, that is, the 
final significance of the individual. 

A more serious question is why the process should desire 
the form. What relation do the conceptions, or entelechies, 
bear to the process itself ? If they did not exist as second reali- 
ties, would it make any difference to the process? Would not 
the process move by its own immanent tendency? In that 
case the conceptions, serving as final causes, would seem to be 
after-thoughts. But Aristotle is too anthropomorphic to be 
troubled by such questions ; for him to the end it is the con- 
ceptions which move matter, although ''only the master workers 
know the reason why. Manual workers, like lifeless things, 
work by habit." 

That there is truth in the finalist's contention we shall find 
abundant reason to see. But the solution suggested by Plato 
and Aristotle is far too easy and abstract. A biologist of the 
present day, Driesch,^ has attempted to give Aristotle's view 
a more modern and scientific statement. Driesch insists that 

desire is apparent beauty, while the original object of will is real beauty, but 
desire is conditioned by the notion (of the value of the object) and not vice versa. 
Thought, therefore, is the starting point or principle. Thought, however, is 
set in motion by the object of the thought ; but only one of the two series is 
absolutely intelligible, and in this Being stands first defined as simple and actual." 
Meta. XII, 7, 1072, a, 26. "The final cause operates like a loved object, and 
that which is moved by it communicates motion to the rest." Meta. 1072, 6, 3. 
1 "Philosophy of the Organism" (Macmillan). 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 365 

we cannot account for the prospective value of the parts of 
protoplasm, as shown especially in restitution and heredity, 
unless we introduce entelechies. ''An entelechy means the 
faculty of achieving 'forma essentialis.''' Now these entele- 
chies, while figuring in the process, are not on the one hand 
psychological entities, nor on the other are they energies. They 
can, however, be best understood from psychological analogies. 
They are selective. They perform functions which resemble 
judging and liking, willing and thinking. Yet, while they are 
not energies, they can under certain conditions suspend the 
energetic reactions; and they have a regulative function in 
the process. But while Driesch's attempt to get away from the 
anthropomorphism of Aristotle is commendable, it must be 
said that Aristotle's final causes are at least intelligible, being 
drawn from our experience of certain processes where they do 
hold. Valuable as is Driesch's empirical work, his entelechies 
seem to have no meaning at all; they are merely duplicates 
of the selective and prospective tendencies of the process. 
Moreover, such a selective function is by no means limited to 
the organic realm; we find it, though with less complicated 
working, in the chemical afiinities. In any case, it is hard to 
see what we have gained by hypostasizing such tendencies 
and giving them a Greek name. 

Vitalism. — Mechanism and classical finalism deal with 
partial aspects of the process. Vitalism attempts to find a 
common denominator for the process as a whole. 

Bergson ^ and others have pointed out with great clearness 
that the correlative growth of organs and functions in organic 
life, for example in the eye, could not be accounted for by mere 
accidental variations and natural selection. If in any one 
part such variations were considerable and abrupt, as in the 
case of mutations, they would only interfere the more with the 
functioning of the organ. If they were small they might not 
interfere, but they would have to accumulate through ages, 
and correlative changes in this and other organs would have to 
take place, so as to produce harmonious adjustment or adaptive 
functioning. This is almpst impossible to conceive on the basis 
of chance. 

1 "Creative Evolution" (Henry Holt & Co.). 



366 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

So with the different directions in which evolution has pro- 
ceeded. These directions must be impHed in the process, even 
though we can only read them backwards, as at sea we read 
the direction of the ship's movement from the silver wake where 
we have passed. 

As between mechanism and intellectual finalism, Bergson 
suggests the middle ground of vital impulse, in which is im- 
plied the complexity that afterwards appears, when evolution 
splits up in the struggle with the environment, as the potential 
effects of the skyrocket appear when it bursts in the air. The 
most important of these tendencies are the split of life into 
the vegetable and animal, and the dissociation of mind into 
instinct and intelhgence. Evolution is division. In the divi- 
sion, however, there remains a suggestion of the other side; 
some common characters, however secondary, abide. Plant 
life carries a blend of the animal ; intelligence a blend of in- 
stinct. The progress and continuity of the process in either 
case are to be accounted for by the push from behind of the 
common vital impulse. 

Whether this vital impulse, as a distinct determinant in the 
evolution of life, must be added to the chemical determinants 
with which naturalism deals, must be decided by scientific 
evidence. Once admit creative evolution in general, and recog- 
nize in particular that every compound must be regarded as 
a creative result, possessing a new and unique set of reactions 
and not a mere addition of the characters of the separately known 
elements which enter into it, — and the conceptual difficulty 
disappears. Whether, as externally viewed, life itself can be 
regarded as a compound, or whether to produce life some new 
factor must be supposed to have been added from without, 
must be decided upon evidence. At present the difficulties of 
conceiving that life was introduced from outside into our planet 
seem at least as great as those of the theory that it arose from 
certain antecedent conditions on our planet. In any case, we 
are dealing essentially with mechanism. Vital impulse, as 
pictured by Bergson, is no less blind than the elements of 
chemistry. Its structure, in order to account for all the diver- 
sity of life, must be no less atomic than science has pictured 
the physical structure to be. Moreover, synthesis would 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 367 

seem to be as characteristic of evolution as division ; and if so, 
why may not Hfe itself be regarded as a new synthesis, under 
specific conditions, in the creative process? 

The trouble with the hypothesis of vital impulse is that, like 
any conception that tries to explain everything, it explains noth- 
ing. We still have the diversity of the process, with its direc- 
tion, to account for. To say that what does happen can hap- 
pen, is self-evident, and that is all that vitalism tells us. In 
trying to explain everything from below, the higher from the 
more primitive, it is pragmatically indistinguishable from the 
naturalistic mechanism which it condemns. The latter at 
least furnishes the only empirically fruitful method of investi- 
gating the apparent sequences of life. To account, further, 
for the direction or meaning of the process, we must have some- 
thing besides a blind vis a tergo. What this means we must 
presently see more in detail. 

It is at least infinitely improbable that mere chance, or mere 
external conjunction, whether in terms of vitalism or of chemical 
mechanism, should have accomplished the results of organiza- 
tion, with the compensatory adjustments involved in the evolu- 
tion of life and mind. There must be some continuity which 
enables us to read down from the higher as well as to read up 
from the lower. 

It is also unlikely that all life is a compound having the poten- 
tiality of the development of the higher forms with their awaken- 
ing ideals. It is easier to suppose that life, as Maxwell supposes 
in regard to matter, has its omniscient sorting demon who 
interpenetrates and selects in accordance with certain standards. 
In other words, the natural order must be thought of as inter- 
penetrated by an intelligent order. Aristotle's failure to make 
form (in the sense of ideal conceptions) effective, and his re- 
course to mechanical push to move the universe, should show 
us that form, in order to be efficient, must dip into the dynamic 
process itself, whether in a personal or impersonal way. In the 
plastic responsiveness of the natural order to this, the unseen 
order, would in that case lie its capacity for progress. This 
plasticity becomes more ^nd more apparent in the higher orders 
of hfe with their vast complexity of possibilities and their 
organization for action. The nervous system is peculiarly the 



368 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

type of plastic responsiveness both to the unseen order which 
overarches and permeates and to the sense-order which es- 
tabhshes the immediate conditions of survival. 

II. A New Teleology Suggested 

We have little sympathy to-day with Plato's *' heavenly pat- 
tern" and Aristotle's "final causes," that is, with ideal con- 
ceptions as determining existence and survival. We are apt 
to think of the process of evolution as blindly accomplishing 
its course as a result of internal and external accidents. At 
best, some would say, it is only in retrospect that nature finds 
that some ways of doing things seem good and so strives to 
preserve them. Mind itself, with its ideals, some have come 
to treat in this retrospective way. And any emphasis on ideals 
has been promptly treated as an hypostasis of our own ab- 
stractions. Chance variation is regarded as the mother of mind 
and form, ideals are but indications of the drift, not its rationale. 

Even on this materialistic view, some use may be found for 
the ''final form" of Aristotle. It represents, at any rate, the 
way we look back upon the series after its conclusion. Ideals 
and types, as our measures, form a posteriori a convenient in- 
strument for viewing the flux, and furnish a certain subjective 
satisfaction. But can we stop here? Is the type, the "final 
form," a mere result of accident? Could the direction of the 
organic process, or of social ideals, have been the opposite, if 
accident so decreed? Is there no objective way of reading the 
series? Does it appear as it does, simply because we happen 
to be at this end of it? And when life repeats itself, with 
seemingly new efforts to reproduce a type, is this sufficiently 
accounted for by accident? Could thought have been con- 
stituted entirely otherwise ? Is the whole story of life, from the 
chaotic protoplasm from which it started to the striving for 
truth and beauty, all a matter of blind variations, operated on 
by a blind environment? 

However fully such a picture may do justice to our ignorance, 
it yet does not satisfy our reason. From the point of view of 
reason it is easier to read nature as striving to express certain 
types or ideals than to read ideals as chance. Nature seems 
to be, somehow, leading in the direction of human nature ; the 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 369 

striving for a type somehow to be determining the direction of 
the series; and freedom and significant expression of Ufe to 
be all the time the end to be realized. 

I admit the difficulty of making this clear. But as a faith 
it ought to have, at any rate, the same opportunity as the 
materialistic faith in blind chance. If in our ignorance it 
makes the transitions of the facts easier for us, that gives it a 
pragmatic advantage over the more shocking rival faith. And 
I must confess that to me the culmination of a process in the 
appreciation of truth and beauty is more reasonably accounted 
for in a universe which has a fundamental formal character, 
and as such is selective, than in a universe in which this ideali- 
zation is an accident. On such reasonableness we may finally 
have to rest our mode of understanding the significance of 
evolution. Some may call this a mere temperamental prefer- 
ence. In that case the temperament remains to be accounted 
for. To me this seems a fundamental demand for coherency 
and unity, while chance, formless happening, is fundamentally 
irrational — an apotheosis of our ignorance of the modus 
operandi of nature. 

Whether the final cause operates through the inner striving 
of the process for its type, its final realization, or whether the 
efficiency of the final cause means the operation in the universe 
of an ideal will, after the analogy of the artist, interpenetrating 
our finite world of process, selecting and rejecting with reference 
to the realization of the type, — star type or man type, — must 
again be decided by our experience, fragmentary as this is. 
Different ages and minds find one or the other of these attitudes 
more congenial. In any case the form would in some sense pre- 
exist in the process ; and in any case evolution would mean the 
differentiation of the organs for the proper realization of this 
form and, in man at least, for the significant sharing of it. 

Mechanism, while true so far as it goes, is at best only an 
account of the physical conditions of heredity. Heredity does 
not mean merely the passing over of protoplasmic and chromo- 
some potentials. It means also the arising of a unique cona- 
tive disposition, through the impulse of generation. It is 
this which furnishes the architectonic principle of the develop- 
ing life process. The chemical situation must be looked upon 



370 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

as the vehicle or instrument of this process. Heredity must 
be understood not merely as a physical stream, but also as 
a psychic stream, with its variations, its cumulation, and its 
characteristic categories. 

The final theory of evolution must include both mechanism 
and finalism. For the time being, in predicting and controlling 
the process, we must work by efficient causes. Science has no 
choice in this matter. On the other hand, we must admit that 
the ideal selection of the later stages has some continuity with 
the earlier stages. When we try to read the process in the 
large, at any rate, we must somehow recognize the direction 
within it. We may choose to ignore the final reason of things, 
and limit ourselves to the description of sequences, but it 
nevertheless remains true that in part of the process formal 
selection is a reality, and no fair account can be given of evolu- 
tion without recognizing this part and its relation to the whole. 
Invariable sequence, habit, recapitulation, and other external 
forms of linkage are but names for the facts. They merely 
indicate that facts do repeat themselves ; they are not explana- 
tions. In some way the formal categories, of which we become 
conscious in human nature, must reveal to us the tendencies of 
nature ; in some way the blossom on the tree of evolution must 
be indicative of the process which brought it into existence. 
The universe must be such as to account for the ideals which 
are a part of our experience, as well as for the externality and 
blindness which we find. As man in his small way, by his 
selection and emphasis of certain types of universe, is creative, 
so we must suppose that the process of which he is a part and 
which awakens to reflection in him is likewise creative. This 
need not mean that the later stages are present bodily in the 
earlier, or that the earlier stages work by *' conceptions," but 
it means that somehow the categories which the later idealizing 
process brings to bear upon the earlier in our idealization of 
them are germane to these earlier and not accidental. 

Of the two conceptions, the mechanistic and the teleological, 
the latter is the one that overlaps. By means of laws that are 
familiar to us in the later purposive stages we can account 
for the automatism, the mechanism, the seeming deadncss of 
the world. By means of mechanism we cannot account for 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 371 

the seeming plasticity and value in parts of the process, at 
least not without falling back upon the miraculous, and so 
doing violence to our original concept. If we deny the reality 
of mind and ideals, we cannot account for the sense of promise 
of the world and of its openness toward the future, however 
convenient the conception of mechanism may be in epitomiz- 
ing the past. In some way we must recognize emphasis and 
preferential selection, for human nature is part of nature. 

That a universe should tend to realize a certain form is no 
more mysterious than that animals should turn toward or 
away from the light, or that the elements should attract or 
repel each other. In any case, in the last analysis, we must 
fall back upon the constitution of reality as discovered in 
experience, and regard that as reasonable which works out. 
That a possibility of reasonableness should exist in a world 
which evolves reason, seems certainly a reasonable demand. 

It is the naturaHstic materialist who has violated the principle 
of continuity in nature by cutting the higher stages of the pro- 
cess loose from the earlier. Why the materialist, who is always 
emphasizing continuity, should turn round when it comes to 
human nature and its ideals, and here insist upon discontinuity, 
a complete break, absolute irrelevance to what precedes, can 
be explained only as the result of prejudice. He had rather 
make any sacrifice than give up his faith in the adequacy of the 
mechanical method of reading the facts. If we would be fair, 
must we not insist that human nature, with the ideals which 
it brings to light, reveals truly and fundamentally the drift 
of nature? If we make nature responsible for evolution, then 
we must at any rate give nature full credit. We must keep in 
mind that thought, right, and beauty are as much expressions 
of nature as is the law of falling bodies. The whole history 
of evolution, including institutions, science, and art, must be 
somehow prefigured in the nature of the universe as a whole. 
The after-form which we read in retrospect must somehow be 
foreshadowed in the process which terminates in it and which 
makes such reading possible. Consciousness but reveals, it 
does not make the categories which guide mind in its higher 
activity. 

Thus both the mechanical and the teleological categories 



372 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

must run through the various stages of evolution, however 
different their concrete richness and significance become with 
the varying complexity of the process. And this may be true 
irrespective of the stuff in which these categories express them- 
selves. We have material mechanism and spiritual mechanism ; 
and why not material teleology as well as spiritual teleology, — 
just as the genius of the artist may express his meaning in 
marble, on canvas, in tones, or by means of words? The body 
is different, the limitations which the material sets are different, 
but the ideal laws are the same. 

If we take even the categories of mechanism, we are most 
familiar with those which are expressed in terms of our own 
mental life, for memory and habit are categories of mechanism. 
As in the mechanical categories we can trace the identity be- 
tween the higher processes of memory association and the 
lower processes of perceptual habit and automatic activities, 
so we can trace the identity of the categories of external mental 
coherence with the categories of external coherence in the non- 
conscious world. Whether we use the term habit or some other 
term to indicate this universality of mechanism is a matter of 
convenience. If we cannot surely say, with C. S. Peirce, that 
matter is "mind hide-bound with habit," we can say that mech- 
anism, in the sense of external determination, overlaps mind 
and matter, and has essentially the same categories in each. 

On the analogy of memory, or rather by the use of categories 
which we must regard as identical and which are applicable 
both to the mechanism of memory and to the simpler forms 
of mechanism, we can account for, or at any rate throw Kght 
upon, processes which at first seem mysterious enough. In the 
case of memory, each part has by its position a certain function 
whereby it brings into the field of consciousness certain other 
parts. In other words, the memory mechanism is a constella- 
tion of mutually determining parts, each able to restore other 
parts within the cluster. The mechanism is not absolute ; there 
are minor fluctuations even in reproductive imagination ; while 
the situations are sufficiently identical for recognition with its 
feeling of familiarity, new details have been added, old details 
dropped out, and the tone of the situation may be greatly 
changed. In practical life we pass over these fluctuations as 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 373 

of no consequence to the process. In productive imagination, 
on the other hand, new types of universals are brought to Hght, 
which become permanent parts of our ideal activity. 

In spite of the greater complexity of the process in the 
higher stages and the consciousness which accompanies it 
there, it is easy to see the fundamental identity of the operation 
of nature here with those operations which we find in the 
lower stages, such as heredity and the restitution (within greater 
or smaller limits) of parts. In each of these cases we have 
to do, whether in a material or a mental way, with the positional 
value of a part within a constellation and its power to restore 
its context, whether this context be the space context of a 
pattern of parts, simultaneously and mutually supplementing 
one another, or a time context, where the parts blend into one 
another and constitute a sequential whole, as in the stages in 
the life of an organism or the movement of a melody. Some 
writers have called this positional potentiality of parts, on the 
level of unconscious life, organic memory. It is truer, however, 
to regard memory as a highly specialized form of the more 
universal tendency of reproduction of parts, with their fluctua- 
tions or mutations. 

Thus it seems that certain mechanical categories are common 
to our minds and to the rest of reality. The preservation of a 
type, the tendency of one part to restore the rest of its complex, 
seem to be common to the mechanism of the ideal stage and 
to that of lower activity. On the teleological side, too, we 
have reason to believe that there must be similar identity, — 
elementary formal categories running through the process as 
a whole, whether inorganic, organic, or ideal selection, — not 
limited to mind but present in some way, however unconscious, 
in the lower stages. There seems to be a tendency toward 
clearness and distinctness, toward economy in relationships. 
That is why the fundamental postulate of simplicity has proved 
so convenient both in our theoretical and practical adjustments 
to our world. 

That nature has, as it were, an aesthetic sense, that it operates 
so as to produce clearness, and distinctness, is shown throughout 
its whole range of development. The inorganic world, as well 
as the organic, seems to respond to our ideal demands for simple 



374 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

formulations, for distinct types. Physical harmony follows 
the simplest ratios, as was pointed out by Helmholtz. The 
light rays move in straight lines, the chemical elements seem 
to fall into a ''natural series, " with relations that can be mathe- 
matically predicted. In the organic world nature likewise 
demands clearness and distinctness; the protean fluctuations 
fail to survive. Only the mutations, the distinct types, con- 
tinue in heredity. Again, the mixture of species either gives 
rise to no offspring or produces sterility ; or in the case of more 
approximate species a final reversion to the original type takes 
place in accordance with Mendel's law. Finall}-, in ideal 
creativeness and psychological heredity clearness and distinct- 
ness is the law. Here our conscious aim is to eliminate the 
irrelevant and make the type, or universal, stand out. Only 
the clear and distinct types succeed in becoming a permanent 
part of individual memory and social history. The infinite 
minor fluctuations come and go. We may therefore assume that 
the law which nature manifests in its highest creativeness, and 
of which we are aware in our ideal production, namely, the law 
of clearness and distinctness, is identical with the law which 
governs nature throughout its various stages, and that the 
highest manifestations of this law differ from the lower primarily 
in the freedom and spontaneity with which the law realizes 
itself in the former. An immanent form in any case leads nature 
onward. While the law becomes conscious in the higher stages, 
it does not follow that it originates there. On the contrary, it 
comes to our creative activity as a presupposition or command, 
as the voice of the universe. 

This demand for clearness and distinctness in nature is seen 
even where there is mutation and instabihty. In a universal 
process the demand for clearness and distinctness necessarily 
presents an infinite problem. In the case of the radio-active 
elements we seem to have such a case of mutation and instability 
in the natural series of elements. In the organic series periods 
of stabihty seem to alternate with periods of mutation. But 
in each case the spontaneity of nature illustrates the law or 
tendency which nature is ever striving to realize, and which is 
shown all the more strikingly because in places the process is 
still open and is striving for a new equihbrium. 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 375 

Science, therefore, even of the most naturaKstic kind postu- 
lates more than it knows, more than the bhnd mechanism with 
which it professes to work. It posits by its own faith and 
persistent effort, as it verifies by its success, that the universe 
must lend itself to ideals of simplicity and unity, that those laws 
which we discover for ourselves in the higher creative activities 
are relevant to our world, in brief that in a large sense the uni- 
verse is fundamentally teleological. For us thus to strive to 
conquer the universe is part of the universe. The imperishable 
faith on the part of this piece of animated clay that, in spite 
of seeming defeat, it can yet make its demands prevail, that our 
will can in a measure reconstruct a world which shall be clear 
and distinct in its relationships in spite of seeming chaos, — 
this faith is evidence of the voice of the universe, of its push 
toward ideal realization. By virtue of this, "hope springs 
eternal in the human breast." This faith is more fundamentally 
pious than our short cuts by way of an anthropomorphic God. 
The trouble with so much of our thinking both of the mechanical 
and teleological type is that it has been truncated. It lacks 
thoroughness. 

Geometry, mathematical simplification, is but this faith in 
clearness and distinctness reduced to its ultimate terms. It is 
the idealizing process in the abstract, outstripping as it comes 
to consciousness in us, its concrete limitations. And so form 
appears as limit to our finite experience ; yet, when you bring 
back this faith to our motley world, how convenient it proves, 
how well our world lends itself to it, irrespective of variety of 
stuff, so as to make it seem that the universe ''geometrizes." 
And in a deep sense it does; for both the seemingly opaque 
world we strive to know and our thought are part and parcel 
of one process; in their formal presuppositions they are one. 
Nature owns and molds mind into its own requirements. If 
the process in the universe, from the stellar movements and the 
minute relations in the structure of things to the harmonic 
relations of music, seeks geometrical and arithmetical patterns, 
this is not because our thinking regulates the process, but be- 
cause in the laws of our .thinking we discover the pure mani- 
festations of the inherent form, not obscured by the concrete 
transitions and changes of process. 



376 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

That, again, our conceptualizing should prove approximate 
is inevitable in a moving world. In such a world form must 
ever manifest itself as tendency or direction, — as an ought. 
Absolute our ideal formulations could only prove in a world 
which had completely settled or encrusted itself. But such a 
universe would be dead. Process, transmutation, creative- 
ness, is of the nature of reality and must be accepted as such. 
That nature is creative and not merely reproductive of ready- 
made universals is shown both on the plane of the unconscious 
origination of the lower levels of nature and on the plane of 
ideal creativeness. Organically, nature is ever creating and 
fixing new types ; and in our ideal constructions this is no less 
true. If, on the organic level, nature is prodigal in her experi- 
ment, she is no less prodigal on the ideal level. How few poems, 
pictures, laws, practical plans, out of the myriads evolved, 
answer the permanent ideal demands of the race ! 

If nature stands in relation to its processes as an artist 
attempting to express a form — a form not foreign to itself 
but its own implicit or explicit constitution — then we must 
regard natural selection as part of the same activity, differing 
only in the degree of conscious direction and significance. The 
latter is itself a result of the demand for clearness and distinct- 
ness of functioning on the part of nature. In natural selection 
this formal demand realizes itself automatically in the flux of 
process. Just as the stone rolls back again to the bottom unless 
it reaches the top of the hill, so life tumbles back to the inchoate 
plane from which it has tried to rise unless it reaches a clear and 
distinct type. On the level of thought, however, where nature 
is more or less clearly conscious of her aim, the process of so- 
called ''artificial" selection is far more economical and efficient. 
Not only can ages of unconscious experimenting be fore- 
shortened, but results of clearness and distinctness can be at- 
tained which blind groping never could reach. And with it all, 
there is added the consciousness of value with its infinite richness. 

It is not a case of natural laws in the spiritual world or of 
spiritual laws in the natural world, but of certain laws pre- 
vailing throughout the process of the universe, expressing them- 
selves in the limitations of each particular stage and stuff 
in which they operate, just as the categories of art are funda- 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 377 

mentally the same whether the stuff be marble, tone, or the 
body of language. What makes the law in each case clear is 
the interpenetration of the same identical form. The various 
energies are fundamentally run through with the same cate- 
gories. It is a case of our reasonable reading of our world. 

We are now in a position to sum up the internal conditions 
governing the continuity of process. For the present purpose, 
the elementary facts in the constitution of process may be 
considered as three : (1) the fluency of process which makes 
it overflow our abstract types, producing ever new fluctuations 
and mutations; (2) the mechanical aspect of process which 
makes its flow crystalhze provisionally at least into certain 
structures, making it possible to predict and control its flow ; 
(3) the formal requirements which condition the direction and 
intelKgibility of the process. 

Two questions yet remain, namely, the character of this 
formal constitution and the question of its effectiveness in our 
world of process. Coming back to our first question, How do 
forms preexist or what forms are presupposed? I do not 
believe that it is necessary to assume an indefinite number of 
forms as do Plato and Aristotle. True, Aristotle limited the 
forms to class-forms and depended upon the concrete process to 
differentiate these into individuals. I would make the formal 
requirements still more general — the same for the process as 
a whole. These formal requirements, as I have shown, can be 
reduced in the last analysis to the demand for clearness and 
distinctness as regards the transitions and relations within the 
process. Variations, smaller or larger, are ever produced ; they 
tend to crystallize — to be retained and to reproduce their 
contents by virtue of the inherent mechanism of the process. 
But they survive in the process, so far as internal conditions 
are concerned, only if they fulfill the formal requirements of 
clearness and distinctness. Neither the types nor the individ- 
uals are predetermined as such. But when in the course of 
the transmutations they do arise, they must, in order to survive, 
obey certain formal laws — laws which are also fundamental 
in our understanding and .appreciation of our world. 

Of course, besides the internal conditions of survival there 
are the external conditions, which fix what types can survive 



378 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

in the particular environment, simple or complex, low or high, 
as it may be. But these can only eliminate, they cannot make 
types permanent. 

These external conditions cannot be conceived in merely 
material terms. There is more than one level of environment. 
If we take into account merely the simplest environment, the 
micro-organisms are better adapted to it than we are. They 
were here before us, and will remain for ages after the earth 
becomes uninhabitable for the higher forms of life. Some of 
them are adapted to withstand the temperature of liquid air. 

There seem to be certain plateaus, levels, or crusts of Ufe, 
more or less rhythmically formed. These have their own unique 
conditions for survival. In social life we have certain levels 
in the way of custom and tradition ; then there comes a loosen- 
ing of the crust and a period of agitation and rearrangement. 
This in turn is followed by a new level of equilibrium with new 
selective conditions for the individual. The same seems to 
be true of life on the organic level. Here, too, periods of 
stability of species are found to alternate with periods of muta- 
tion. And thus new levels are reached with new external 
conditions for survival. 

As regards the effectivenes of form, Plato and Aristotle have 
shown that in higher ideal realization it is not necessary that 
the form itself should move in order to produce movement, 
that is, that the form should possess energy. The beloved may 
be indifferent to the lover. Beauty moves us by its perfection, 
not by its sensuous body. What is true in the higher activities 
may be true of the lower. Substituting energy or tendency 
for love, we may say that energy seeks a geometrical or arith- 
metrical pattern, seeks simplicity of relationships, though the 
formal limits which it seeks do not act upon it. They are in 
fact part of its constitution. The laws of logic do not act 
upon the process of thought. They are implied in it. And 
thought is but nature's reflection upon itself. 

III. Matter and God 

In closing, something must be said about the metaphysical 
nature of the world in which form is realized. There has been 
in recent times much sentimental inveighing against the mean- 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 379 

ness and blindness of matter. Now that depends primarily 
upon definition. With some noble, rugged materialists the 
conception of matter is decidedly thick — rich in possibilities. 
Democritus, Hobbes, and Priestley deny nothing to matter 
that could make the world plausible. They attribute to matter 
all the pragmatic consequences with which experience makes 
us acquainted, including mind and ideals. With Democritus, 
while mind is reduced to fire-atoms, it loses nothing of its effi- 
cacy and dignity on that account. For Hobbes, consciousness 
itself is a property of matter and so not foreign to the world. 
Priestley's materialistic hypothesis does not interfere with his 
reUgious devoutness. The great prophets of Israel, who gave 
us our fundamental ethical and religious ideals, thought of the 
world, including the human soul, — ''the breath" of man, — 
in material terms. With all these, matter covers the whole 
range of potentialities from inorganic nature to a deistic God. 
Tyndall could not cease to marvel at the potentialities of 
matter. When we should understand them, all would be clear. 
With this thick conception of matter, teleological idealism 
need not have any quarrel. Matter rises to any emergency 
since the conception can be enlarged to meet the case. It 
would be principally a question of convenience whether we 
should use such a concept. 

The tendency, however, has not been absent to narrow the 
conception of matter to the anti-teleological, or mechanical, 
interest, and thus to contrast matter with mind, — which 
under such a view becomes a sort of miraculous accident. 
Such a conception still leaves much to admire. The body with 
its delicate adjustments and intricacies shows wondrous pos- 
sibilities even when contrasted with mind. Even the pale no- 
bility of the face of a dead friend challenges our reverence by 
its wonderful expressiveness. The trouble with the mechanical 
conception is not so much its ignobility as its narrowness — its 
failure to take stock of all the facts, to furnish play for all the 
possibilities of life. 

If we use matter in this narrower sense, as opposed to mind, 
what is the function of matter in the process of evolution? 
Those who have attempted to give an account of the world in 
terms of monistic idealism, in whatever form, have eventually 



380 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

been brought face to face with the problem of that upon which 
the mind impinges, the non-teleological stuff against which our 
purposes seem to beat, and in struggUng with which they dis- 
cover themselves. If Plato insists that only the Good is 
ultimately real, and all else is imitation and non-being, yet he 
has to recognize a reaUty at least in the Umitations which the 
struggling elements of our mundane sphere set to our purposive 
striving. If the elements but reflect the universal beauty, 
they also distort it. If Aristotle finds in matter the potential, 
yet it is not passively potential. It has an order of its own 
which may run counter to the purposive order. The Platonic 
dualism meets us again in Hegel's spatiahzing of the category of 
spirit and its estrangement in its lapse to unconscious other- 
ness. As Aristotle's potential, it meets us in Fichte's struggle 
of the ego with the irrational surd of our nature, while Schelhng 
would make the physical energies merely lower categories in 
the history of spirit as it struggles toward its conscious awaken- 
ing. Bergson would make matter the inverse of reaUty — the 
intellectual spatiahzing and degradation of a reahty which is 
essentially a psychic stream of growing, blending, interpene- 
trating hfe-impulses. But, nevertheless, he has to acknowledge 
that somehow in the struggle with matter, in order to mold 
itself to its constitution, to maintain itself under its conditions, 
hfe explodes like a shell into its inherent tendencies. In some 
sense, then, the reahty of matter, as having a part in the 
realization of life, has had to be recognized even by those who 
have categorically declared its non-existence. 

In giving an adequate account of mechanical matter as an 
external condition and instrument in the evolution of life, a 
pluralistic conception of the world has a decided advantage over 
the monistic. It is not forced to smuggle in through the back 
door what it has cast out through the front door. It is free 
to follow the lead of experience in recognizing different types of 
reality. Among these are the physical types which, on the 
one hand, through their own structure and laws set definite 
conditions for the survival of life, and, on the other hand, fur- 
nish the intellect with the instruments by which life becomes 
liberated from slavery to the immediate present. 

Even in dealing with the physical world, where mechanical 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 381 

conceptions have so long reigned supreme in our theorizing, it 
has become more and more clear that mechanism alone, con- 
venient as it is within certain limits, is inadequate as a final 
philosophy. So" far as the naturahstic aspect of the world is 
concerned, it would seem that the available energy must con- 
tinually run down as the streams run into the sea ; that heat 
must reach more and more a condition of equal distribution 
according to Carnot's law, and that the universe must' become 
eventually stark still, or rather would have had to become so 
infinite ages ago. That this law has not thus operated must be 
due to the fact that mechanism is somehow a part of a larger 
constitution which is fundamentally teleological and in which 
life and mind are fundamental categories. Even to explain the 
activities of matter, we find it convenient to think of it as some- 
how interpenetrated by intelligence; Maxwell's sorting omni- 
science keeps the universe from running down to a dead level. 
And Professor Henderson ^ has recently shown that it is im- 
probable that the ensemble of maximal properties which con- 
stitute the environment of life should have been produced by 
mere chance. It is more congenial to our mind, at any rate, 
to assume prospective intelligent selection within the physical 
environment, fitting it for the abode of life. 

On the other hand, I cannot feel that merely reducing the 
universe to metaphysical mind-stuff, as in the various types of 
panpsychism, necessarily ennobles life. Because metaphysical 
idealism has seemed to furnish a congenial cHmate for our ideal 
striving, we have often been inclined to overlook its logical 
fallacies, its violation of common sense, the bankruptcy of its 
ethics, the romanticism of its procedure. Few have under- 
stood its technical terminology. But they have accepted it 
emotionally, nevertheless, as a poem, a religion. Add to this 
that many champions of absolute idealism, such as Fichte and 
the Anglo-American idealists, have themselves been noble and 
inspiring souls, whose emphasis has been on value rather than 
stuff, and you have the reason for the recent vogue of panpsy- 
chism. But the world is neither better nor worse for our meta- 
physical conceptions. And if panpsychism is indifferent to the 
realization of ideals, if it reduces the higher to the lower cate- 

1 "The Fitness of the Environment " (Macmillan, 1912). 



382 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

gories, if it fails to give us a preferential basis of values, if it 
offers no call to our creative capacities, it is teleologically in- 
distinguishable from the crassest type of materiahsm. This is 
the logic of the fact that so many Hegelians of the Left com- 
pletely faced about from absolute idealism to absolute material- 
ism, or rather found that the former, as impersonally conceived, 
was equivalent to the latter. The mere reduction of the stuff 
of the universe to the type of mind-stuff is not sufficient to 
guarantee its value. The lowest things, as well as the highest, 
that we know in our experience are mental. The most de- 
grading lusts are as much mental as the highest aspirations. 
Mind covers the whole range of value from heaven to hell. 

The pragmatic difference in metaphysical conceptions for 
our ideals lies not in the stuff of our conceptions but in their 
friendliness to what we feel to be our higher nature, the re- 
enforcement of what we feel to be the best part of the universe, 
our ideal demands. 

We must not be misled by mere words. We must recognize 
that pragmatically we have dynamic situations with their 
variations and their tendency toward types, whatever the meta- 
physical stuff may be. It is a mistake to suppose that by 
adopting more euphonious terms for these situations, such as 
"vital impulse" or **panpsychism, " we have either explained 
or dignified the process. As general metaphysical entities 
they do not alter the problem of continuity and evolution one 
whit, though they may be more congenial to our imagination. 
The problem in any case remains for science to discover for 
our practical purposes of description and prediction the deter- 
mining factors in the process ; and for philosophy and religion 
to discover the immanent categories which enable us to read 
the process with clearness and distinctness. We must conceive 
a world which makes our minds feel at home. Teleologically, 
it makes no difference whether we call the universe matter or 
spirit, if we only realize that it is such as eventually to demand 
and enforce ideals. This is its ultimate promise or potentiality. 
What name we give to reality does not matter so long as its 
properties, its pragmatic outcomes, are the same ; so long as 
it can think and appreciate and furnish the object of our hopes ; 
so long as it blossoms out into a sense for beauty, a demand for 



TELEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 383 

right, a worship of the ideal. It is true in any case that the 
universe makes us for itself, to express itself. 

Our direct acquaintance with the effectiveness of form is 
limited to the operation of mind and to this in its higher ideal 
striving. When we try to realize formal selection in the uni- 
verse at large, it is at any rate easier to picture such selection 
to ourselves if we think of a greater and better mind inter- 
penetrating the various stages of the process with intelligent 
interest, reenforcing the formal demands of the process and 
eliminating failures. 

Even if the conception of an abstract, immanent form should 
satisfy our purely logical and aesthetic demands upon the uni- 
verse, our ethical and religious needs would still call for an 
interpenetrating and overarching personal constitution which 
works for righteousness and beauty, which is sympathetically 
concerned in ideal realization, which in short makes warm and 
living the formal constitution of the process. We think of God 
as the master-mind, interpenetrating our minds and nature 
and, in a manner which we can but faintly grasp, guiding to 
a meaningful issue. 

To be omnipresent and universally effective, this mind 
need not be the whole of things. Heat and gravitation are 
present throughout the physical world, but they are not the 
whole of the world. Take social history, — a great personality 
like Jesus may permeate history and make it converge toward 
him, may stamp and control history, and yet not be all of 
history. 

Of this large regulative and compensating universal constitu- 
tion it must indeed seem that it does a wholesale rather than 
a retail business. This would indeed be deadening to our 
ethical and religious consciousness, except for the other analogy 
derived from our own organic economy, namely, that the regular 
adjustments become automatically purposive. So the whole- 
sale operations of the universe require no attention. Maxwell's 
sorting demon can do his work automatically. Mechanism can 
take over the work of intelligence. It is only the retail unique 
relations which require, interest. This leaves mind, in its 
higher reaches, free to deal with the rarer personal aspects of 
the situation, the spots where, by virtue of spontaneity and 



384 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

complexity, free and rational creativeness operates. And if 
even here personal interest or sympathy seems appalling, we 
must remember that the Mind of minds is not bounded by our 
narrow limitations of space and time, but is capable of an in- 
finitely larger field of interest. We may also imagine that the 
occasions for sharing in this larger life lie in us — this supra- 
finite life lying ever at our subhminal or supraliminal door, 
ever waiting, and ever welcoming the proper organization and 
the due awakening in us for its powers to be reahzed, as light 
awaits the organization of an eye for its beauty of color to 
appear. Thus pluralism, and pluralism alone, with its concep- 
tion of growth and organization of centers and their mutual 
and cosmic interpenetration, fills the need of the religious 
demands of Ufe. 

As, moreover, our finite minds can interpenetrate and mold 
various types of stuff into the unity of ideals, so the Master 
mind may interpenetrate the variety of the processes of nature, 
even though they are not mind. The statue can express ideals 
even if it is not mind-stuff. We may thus have teleological 
unity with variety of stuff and stages of development. We 
may in closing adopt the language of Emerson, even though 
we must conceive our relation to the Master mind as more 
concrete and intimate than that implied in the Oversoul : 
"We five in succession, in division, in particles. Meantime 
within man is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the uni- 
versal beauty to which every part and particle is related, the 
eternal one." 



CHAPTER XIX 
General Survey: The Five Attributes 

The problem of attributes is somewhat out of fashion since 
the dominance of modern ideahsm. It has become a habit 
to think of reahty simply in terms of experience, and reflec- 
tive experience at that. It seems to me, however, that with 
our new epistemological tools we are in a position to take up 
seriously some of our old metaphysical problems, applying the 
pragmatic method. In using the term pragmatic, I do not 
mean to commit myself to any of the special doctrines which 
have recently passed under that name. I mean that any 
reahty must be conceived as the differences it makes to our 
reflective purposes. This holds whether the reality in ques- 
tion be of the thing type or the self type or some other type. 



Substance has come to have a distinct scientific meaning 
in modern times. So far as it is possible to revive the Spi- 
nozistic conception of substance, it would now amount to the 
epistemological postulate of totality, viz. the facts are part 
of one world in such a way that every fact can, under certain 
conditions, make a difference to other facts.^ What those con- 
ditions are, it is for science to investigate. The differences 
must also be capable of becoming differences to a reflective con- 
sciousness under certain conditions, in order to concern us. 

These differences are capable of being systematized into 
certain attributes — summa genera of differences not further 
reducible. My reflections have led me to believe that there 
are five such attributes, irreducible to terms of each other, 
viz. stuff or energy, time, space, consciousness, and form. 
Future investigations will have to determine how far these 
are ultimate attributes and whether there are others. 

I See " Truth and Reality," Chapter VII, pp. 133-138. 
385 



386 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

It is true that such attributes are abstractions from the total 
matrix of reality. But to say that they are abstractions does not 
mean that they are ideal or phenonemal in the sense that they 
belie reality. Without abstraction we can have no science of 
reality. These attributes are genuine aspects of reality if we 
must recognize them as such in the procedure of experience. 

The classical discussion of attributes goes back to Spinoza. 
Spinoza makes causal difference, as well as conceptual, de- 
pend upon the possession of a common attribute on the part 
of the contents. He even goes farther and reduces the causal 
relation to the conceptual: ''If things have nothing in com- 
mon, it follows that one cannot be apprehended by means of 
the other and, therefore, cannot be the cause of the other." * 
This evidently is a confusion of causal dependence with logical 
dependence — a confusion of which later idealism has so often 
been guilty. With Spinoza this identification easily follows from 
the ambiguity of his parallel attributes, as we shall see later. 

The same reality, according to Spinoza, figures in different 
attributes. Thus substance must figure as both thought and 
extension. It must also figure in infinite other ways not in- 
cluded in experience. Thus substance must possess not only 
all the attributes of which there is evidence, but infinite others. 
The more reality, the more determinations. Hence, complete 
reality must have infinite determinations. 

It is not necessary to point out that Spinoza is inconsistent 
with his own thesis, that every fact within reality must be 
conceived with reference to a context, or, as he would put 
it, must have a common attribute with the rest of reality. 
He is inconsistent, first, as regards the relation between thought 
and extension, for extension must be conceived, and so must 
be capable of making a difference to thought. To be indif- 
ferent or parallel to thought would be to be without significance. 
He is still more inconsistent as regards his infinite attributes. 
These, by hypothesis, make no difference to thought, and yet 
are assumed. On the contrary, in so far as we make an a priori 
assumption, we must start with a finite number of attributes. 
Else knowledge becomes impossible. As a matter of fact, we 
have a right to assume only as many attributes as make a 

^ Spinoza, "Ethics," Part I, Prop. iii. 



GENERAL SURVEY: THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES 387 

difference to judging or reflective experience. The question 
whether these are altered by being known can have no mean- 
ing, since it is only for reflective experience that attributes have 
significance. We must assume that the attributes are what 
they are consistently known-as in progressive human conduct. 

It is unnecessary to point out that extension, with the 
geometrical qualities it implies in Spinoza, cannot be made 
an independent attribute apart from the energetic context in 
which a thing figures, including our perceptual organic con- 
text. Extension is as much a quality as is color or tone. To be 
sure the quality of extension may be said to exist in contexts 
independent of experience. But extension, to be known at any 
rate, must figure in the context of our perceptual consciousness. 
And if so it cannot be parallel to experience in Spinoza's sense 
of forming an exclusive and complete world of its own. 

Spinoza himself was far from consistent in the relative 
emphasis he put upon the two attributes. When he dealt 
with the problem of knowledge, he was inclined to regard 
mind as the mere consciousness of the actions of the body 
— idea corporis. He at least came dangerously near being 
a materiahstic reahst. As he puts it: ''The object of the 
idea constituting the human mind is the body, and the body 
as it actually exists."^ And again: ''The human mind is 
the very idea or knowledge of the human body." ^ No wonder 
then that " the order and connection of ideas is the same as the 
order and connection of things," ^ or as he puts it elsewhere, 
" as the order and connection of causes." * It follows, also, 
that his theory of association must be strictly physiological : 
"Memory is simply a certain association of ideas involving 
the nature of things outside the human body, which association 
arises in the mind according to the order and association of 
the modifications of the human body." ^ This materialistic 
tendency is seen also in his physiological theory of emotions : 
"Whatsoever increases or diminishes, helps or hinders the power 
of activity in oiu* body, the idea thereof increases or diminishes, 
helps or hinders the power of thought in our mind." ^ It fol- 

» Part II, Prop. xiii. 2 Part II, Prop. xix. 

3 Part II, Prop. vii. * Part II, Prop. xix. 

6 Part II, Prop, xviii, note. « Part III, Prop. xi. 



388 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

lows, on this view, that our knowing the object does not in any- 
wise alter the object, though our ideas may be inadequate, 
fragmentary or confused. Such privation of knowledge is falsity. 
Knowledge, when clear and distinct, takes account of the ob- 
ject as it really is in its own eternal system of relations which 
Spinoza calls God. Materialistic realists of to-day have re- 
peated both the theory and inconsistency of Spinoza, for while 
holding that mind is just the awareness of the body, he finds it 
hard to rule out mental facts as such with their own unique 
relations. 

What blinded Spinoza to his epistemological materialism 
was doubtless his play on words. Thus he argues, as we 
have seen, that mind is the consciousness of the body. But 
he argues further that "this idea of the mind is united to the 
mind in the same way as the mind is united to the body." ^ 
He thus, after telling us that "the object of our mind is the 
body as it exists, and nothing else," substantializes this idea 
of the body as having a " distinctive quahty " ^ of its own. This 
process can then be repeated on the idea of the idea, etc., ad 
infinitum. But the fact is that there is no new content pro- 
vided for in this repetition. It is purely a trick of language. 
We remain where we started, with mind as the conscious- 
ness of the bodily modifications. That we know that we 
know, in any case, only signifies that the attitude of knowing 
brings its characteristic feeling of belief with it, in so far as it 
is successful. 

When Spinoza, on the other hand, turns to the problem 
of conduct, he becomes as idealistic as he is materialistic in 
his epistemology. He attributes all agency to systematic 
thought and the passive becomes synonymous with the con- 
fused and unreal. For in the case of ethical conduct, cause 
no longer means physiological processes, but clear and dis- 
tinct ideas. Our mind is active "in so far as it has adequate 
ideas." ^ "The passive states of the mind depend solely on 
inadequate ideas." ^ And man can be said "to act in obedi- 
ence to virtue" only "in so far as he is determined for the 
action because he understands." Finally, the mind's highest 

» Spinoza, "Ethics," Part II, Prop. xxi. « Part II, Prop, xxi, note. 

« Part III, Prop. i. * Part III, Prop. iii. 



GENERAL SURVEY: THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES 389 

knowledge and highest virtue is to know God. And to know 
God is to love God and to love him with "that very love where- 
by God loves himself," ^ "wherein our salvation or blessedness 
or freedom consists." 

Thus Spinoza halts between divided motives. In episte- 
mology he tries, in opposition to the occasionalists with their 
miraculous correspondence between the physical world and the 
mental world, to simplify his problem by making physical ob- 
jects with their relations the only real contents and agencies, 
while mind is reduced to a mere spectator. In ethics he saves 
the significance of conduct by making mind as reason or "clear 
and distinct ideas," the real agent. The world of impulse and 
sense becomes the world of passivity. He is thus at the same 
time, though for different purposes, an epistemological ma- 
terialist and an ethical idealist. Spinoza's logic, in either case, 
leaves us only one attribute — one complete system whether 
of matter or thought. 

Modern science, in so far as it has been allowed to pursue 
its own task, unhampered by metaphysical suppositions, 
whether of the materialistic or idealistic sort, has always in- 
sisted upon as many attributes or independent variables as 
the facts seem to require. These seem to be three for natural 
science : space, time, and energy. The conception of energy 
has gradually supplanted the conception of matter as a uni- 
versal ideal of description. Matter is applicable only within 
a limited field. It is not applicable, for example, to electricity ; 
while energy with its equivalences of transformation can be 
made to cover the whole extent of process, material and im- 
material, physical and psychological. 

In spite of the fact that natural science has found it neces- 
sary to work with these three attributes, it has failed to de- 
fine them in any clear way. The desire for simplification 
has always made itself felt. Thus space and time have some- 
times been regarded as pure quantity. But if space and time are 
pure quantity, how can they be given distinct meaning? We 
must look for the differentia of these attributes, as they are 
in fact implied in our attitudes to the world of processes with 
which science deals. Not the serial tools which they have in 

1 Part V, Prop, xxxvi. 



390 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

common, but their specific character, is what we must try to 
make clear. Certainly, as pure quantity, time and space are 
indistinguishable from each other and from quantity in general. 
While it is convenient to reduce time and space to pure quan- 
tity for certain artificial purposes of prediction, this should 
not blind us to their true character in the world which we 
intend thus to simplify. 

Not only has the attempt been made to reduce time and 
space to pure quantity, but the same attempt has been made 
in regard to mass. Thus Karl Pearson would reduce mass to 
acceleration. But if mass and energy are pure quantity how 
can we get the different units with which quantity must deal? 
These units, obviously, mean something different, according as 
we are concerned with chemical elements or electric potentials 
or neural reactions. But this only shows the confusion that 
has been too prevalent in the analysis of scientific concepts. 

Moreover, while natural science, in its task of simplifying 
and anticipating the world of perception, has been forced to 
emphasize the above attributes, there are other attributes 
which, though neglected, are nevertheless implied in the whole 
procedure of natural science. Thus the attribute of conscious- 
ness — the condition of the unique relation to mind of being 
experienced or interesting, in short the awareness of a world, 
with its complexity — has been neglected by the natural 
scientist. This is natural inasmuch as this attribute is equally 
present to the whole field of problems with which he deals, 
and, therefore, for his specific purpose can be neglected. He 
has set himself the task of deahng with a specific part of ex- 
perience, not with experience as such. 

Again natural science assumes that its facts can be formu- 
lated into a system, i.e. that they can be explained in terms 
of a finite number of simple principles. It implies the reality 
of logical form or that the laws of thought are also the laws of 
things. This obviously is not deducible from the attributes 
of space, time, and energy, but is a presupposition or ideal 
which is implied in all our cognitive endeavor. It holds at 
any rate in the part of the universe which is molded by our 
will ; and if science is to be possible, this presupposition must 
hold in the universe at large. 



GENERAL SURVEY: THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES 391 

II 

It must be obvious, from this survey of the results of the 
past, what our problem is. And while the inquiry did not 
start from the assumptions of science, it must be a matter of 
more than curious coincidence that the metaphysical needs 
and the scientific needs point in the same direction, even though 
the former set a much more comprehensive and articulate 
program. Appljdng the pragmatic criterion, that we must 
assume only such reahties as can make differences to our reflec- 
tive procedure, we must try to make clear what are the ulti- 
mate types of differences which reahty makes to our reflective 
conduct, or, expressed in subjective terms, what ways of taking 
or evaluating our world prove finally effective in our under- 
standing and appreciation of it. Such types of differences we 
shall call by the classic name of attributes. I shall now try, in 
brief, to define these attributes — the summa genera in the 
reflective evaluation of the character of our world. 

Being 

First a word about the attribute of "being," as it has been 
called since Parmenides. By "being" we mean the stuff 
character of reality. This stuff is capable of making definite 
differences under statable conditions to other stuff. This 
dynamic continuity of stuff, with its equivalences, we call 
energy. The stuff that has been emphasized by modern ideal- 
ism is meaning stuff — our reflective purposes. These con- 
stitute one type of stuff, and must be taken account of as of 
final importance for our appreciating and understanding of 
the world. They enable us to differentiate the processes and 
spread them out in series. Similarity, difference, causality, 
reciprocity, etc., as general categories or modes of functioning 
must be part of this account of stuff. 

In order to make a difference to experience, reahty need not 
necessarily be reflective. On the contrary, reflective experience 
will be seen to be dependent to a large extent upon non-reflec- 
tive processes. The meaning of the object reflected upon de- 
pends largely upon its unnoticed background. There are three 
ways in which attention may be dependent upon unnoticed 



392 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

facts. Thus processes, not attended to, make up the larger 
associative context, the background of feeling and tendency, 
of the object. The different meaning of man or evolution to 
the scientist and to the common man is largely in the *' fringe." 
Or the unnoticed may be instrumental to the activity of at- 
tention without itself being attended to. For example, the 
words on the page that we read. We have a different conscious- 
ness when we are attending to the meaning of the words from 
what we have when we make the words themselves the 
object. There may be processes, however, which are entirely 
irrelevant to the purposive consciousness of the moment, as 
well as unnoticed by it. Thus the pressure of our clothes, the 
furniture of the room, the temperature, etc., even though not 
attended to, make a difference to our consciousness which we 
can easily see by an alteration of these processes. We have a 
very different consciousness in reading a book out of doors un- 
der the open sky from what we have in reading the same book 
in our own study, though in either case we may not be attend- 
ing to the setting. If we want one name for all these various 
unnoticed mental processes I would suggest subattentive,^ 
instead of subconscious, which at best is misleading. 

Not only are there mental processes beyond the circle of 
reflective thought and making a difference to it ; there are also 
processes which we cannot speak of as conscious experience 
at all, which still make a difference to our reflective meaning. 
That I can take up to-day the problems of yesterday or last 
year and thus connect again with my own past, seems to be 
dependent upon a continuity of processes which are not them- 
selves conscious. The unity of the passing thought can ac- 
count for the continuity of our consciousness only while we are 
conscious. It cannot bridge over the gap between going to sleep 
and waking up again, or account for the bringing back of ex- 
periences which have not been active in the meantime. What 
these processes are in their own character must be determined 
by science according to its convenience. It must simplify them 
and differentiate them according to our needs in meeting the 

1 This term was suggested in an article in the Jour. Phil. Psychol, and Set. 
Meth., 1907. It has later been advocated by Dr. Marshall in the same journal, 
but the term subconscious seems to have come to stay. 



GENERAL SURVEY: THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES 393 

complexity of our world. Mere a priori classification can count 
for nothing. 

One thing is certain, and that is the close relation between 
what we call physical energy and our mental activities. It 
is a commonplace that a cup of hot coffee may change our 
emotional atitude towards the world. But I suppose we 
would not on that account be guilty of speaking of coffee as 
emotion stuff. Psychotherapy, again, has made us familiar 
with the differences that mental processes can make to the 
physiological. We have gotten over the notion that one pro- 
cess in order to make a difference to another must be of the 
same kind. Chemical energy is not the same as electrical, 
though capable of making differences to it. So different 
are the conceptual tools which we need in each case that elec- 
trical energy is sometimes spoken of as immaterial. This, 
I take it, only signifies that the conception of gravitation mass 
is inapplicable. The difficulty of finding a common denomi- 
nator between psychic processes and physiological seems still 
greater, yet they are clearly interdependent. All we can 
hope to do in science, and science must here be our last word, 
is to show definitely the conditions under which the transfor- 
mations take place. The following of the minute internal 
transitions may forever lie beyond us. 

Looking at the stuff character with reference to the impli- 
cations of the reflective moment, we have found it convenient 
to look at it as of three levels. These levels can be seen in a 
cross section, as it were, of every reflective moment, the re- 
flective consciousness showing its dependence upon marginal 
or unnoticed experience and this again upon processes to which 
the category of experience cannot be ascribed, and which 
we speak of as dispositions. 

Stuff has the advantage that it can be observed directly. 
It is an object of immediate perception and judgment. The 
other attributes of which we shall speak, viz. space, time, 
consciousness and form can only be observed or make a differ- 
ence to our judgment through the difference they make to the 
stuff structure of the world, including our own purposes. 

I shall speak of these attributes as non-being attributes, 
not because they are less real, but because they are not stat- 



394 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

able as stuff. In the language of philosophy the stuff charac- 
ter has appropriated the term, ''being." These non-being 
attributes can be defined or differentiated from each other by 
the difference which they make to the active purposes of the 
self. 

Time 

It has been customary since Kant to deal with the time and 
space attributes as series and therefore to insist upon their 
ideal character. I have insisted, on the other hand, that the 
serial character is relative, and that the real differentia of 
these concepts must be found in characters of reality which 
are not themselves serial, but furnish the rationale of the serial 
construction. If you speak of time and space, for example, 
as pure quantity, there remains, as we have already pointed 
out, the problem of stating the relation of time and space to 
the general concept of quantity, on the one hand, and to show 
their differentia with reference to each other, on the other 
hand; that is, the whole problem of definition remains. In 
what, in other words, lies the difference in our purposive atti- 
tude in evaluating space and time? 

To speak first of time. What difference does time make 
to the realization of our purposes? Energy, we have seen, 
stands for constancy of process — for stable types of prediction. 
And there is a degree of constancy or we could not have science. 
But, on the other hand, it is a characteristic of our concrete 
world that it does not stay put. We must recognize fleeting- 
ness — growth and decay in much of reality. Constancy, in 
our practical experience, seems at best relative. Hence, we 
must predicate the attribute of time. It is precisely because 
the universe is in perpetual flux, that the task of science — the 
singling out of certain relevant identities which enable us to 
find our way amidst the ever novel and different — becomes so 
significant. In the frozen block-world of Parmenides we should 
have no need of science. The constancy aspect is hmited by 
the flux aspect. And while we must recognize the former as 
real, it seems but meager in extent beside the flowing world of 
protean detail. 

While, again, it is convenient, for certain abstract purposes 



GENERAL SURVEY: THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES 395 

of description, to reduce time to quantity, this must not blind 
us to the nature of the processes which we intend and from 
whose essential character we have abstracted for the partial 
purpose. I insist that what we mean by the differences time 
makes to our purposes is not statable as mere units of chro- 
nology — the intervals of the clock. There must be flow, 
movement, or we would not go to the trouble of inventing 
units. This movement, even in the measurement of time, 
ever belies our static definitions.^ Suppose that nothing really 
happened — no running down of energy, no being born or 
growing old, no change in values. In such a world we should 
indeed declare time to be no more, to make no real difference. 
Or rather we should have no concept of time at all. What 
makes time real to us is that it necessitates new judgments, 
whether because of transformation and novelty in the pur- 
posive meaning which evaluates or in the object which is eval- 
uated. So long as this is the case we cannot express reality 
in merely static categories. Our quantitative devices are in- 
struments to adjust ourselves to this concrete flow. 

It matters not, for this purpose, how you ultimately con- 
ceive the stuff of the world. You may conceive the process 
as the rearrangement of physical entities. Even then you 
must have something besides the bits and their position to 
account for the process of the perceptual world. I do not see, 
myself, how the bits can be indifferent to the rearrangement 
they must suffer, except as they are recognized as merely our 
conceptual models. But whether you conceive the stuff of 
reality in the last analysis as atoms and electrons or as purposive 
systems of meanings, the question remains : When you have 
thus conceived reahty, why should it slip away? Why does 
it not remain chained in the present, as Parmenides would say ? 
Why should there be rearrangement, whether a running up or 
a running down process? As the world has no beginning, 
neither process can be absolute, for then the world must have 
run its course countless ages ago. The theory that the world 
tends to an equihbrium or an equal distribution of heat, as 
impHed in Spencer's formula and the second law of thermo- 
dynamics, presupposes a finite creation of the world. 

1 See "Time and Reality," Psychol. Rev. Mon. Series, no. 26, pp. 23 and 24. 



396 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

If you say, again, that the present rearrangement is the 
result of previous rearrangement, and so on ad infinitum^ why 
should there be rearrangement at all? Why should not our 
positional values remain fixed? Why should something creep 
into our equations, whether subjectively or objectively, so as 
to make them false? If you insist that reahty remains fixed, 
there at least remains the appearance of rearrangement in the 
subject, and that is part of reality and must be met. 

Given, on the other hand, time as a real character of the 
world, you can account for the transformation of values, the 
instabiUty of positions or the falsifying of our judgments, 
which is what it all amounts to in the end. You can also 
furnish the rationale for our serial construction to meet such a 
character of the world, while you can not derive the time char- 
acter from the concept of series. The construction of time 
infinities is a secondary affair, and can neither explain nor in- 
vahdate the real time character. We should not say that 
things move in time. This is putting the cart before the 
horse. Our serial construction is made necessary, on the 
other hand, because of the transformation of our facts and 
values. Time furnishes the limiting value of certain serial 
constructions, such as past and future, without which they 
would be meaningless. 

It is inverting the real situation to speak of contents as 
carried over from one moment to another or as passing in and 
out of time. What really takes place is that some contents 
remain constant, others come and go. Our psychological 
moments chase each other and fade like the shadows on the 
mountains on a cloudy day, yet withal some constancy of 
outline — of tendency and content — remains by means of 
which we can realize their fading and fleeting existence. The 
more permanent contents furnish the background upon which 
the fleeting ones appear and disappear. Some of the latter 
observe a certain rhythm. In the case of the earth clock, 
and our artificial time pieces based upon it, we have socialized 
this rhythm, relative though this is in the end to the process. 
Then we use this rhythm to measure the enduring contents, 
with their passing or accumulating increments. Having in- 
vented intervals we can divide these at will, even to infinity. 



GENERAL SURVEY: THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES 397 

We then invert the process and imagine that the contents 
run through our artificial divisions. The latter, however, have 
no effect on the real overlapping or change, They are an after- 
thought. 

Space 

And now a word about space. If time makes the difference 
of transformation to our concrete realities, space conditions 
translation. If time makes an intrinsic difference to our 
processes, space makes an external difference. The character 
of space, in other words, is such that it does not interfere with 
movement. If space offered resistance, geometry, which is 
based on free mobility, ^ would be impossible. It matters 
not for our purposes whether space be actually empty or not. 
It is convenient, for scientific and practical purposes, to posit 
space as a Kmit of exhaustion and as the absence of resistance, 
i.e. to assume a space zero. Only thus can we state Newton's 
first law of motion. Moreover, if we can approximate to 
such a limit, it must be as objectively real as though we had 
actually attained it. 

We cannot rule out space by mere a priori considerations. 
Thought must follow the facts and not dictate to them. What- 
ever we must acknowledge as real cannot fail to be conceiv- 
able. And pure space seems to be more than a conceptual 
limit. Interstellar space seems to be practically pure. The 
rays of light are, so far as we know, not interfered with in any 
way until they strike solid bodies. Michelson's careful meas- 
urements indicate that the earth rotates as though it moved 
in empty space. What is true in the large may be equally true 
in the minute. Thus the compressibility of the atom as in- 
dicated by the experiments of T. W. Richards seems to point 
to space intervals in the elementary structure of the universe. 
Whether such observations as regards the existence of pure 
space prove final or not, this does not invalidate the reality of 
space as the condition of the energetic interactions in space. 

A more positive characteristic of space than that of free 
mobihty is that of distance or externality of energetic centers. 

1 For a more complete analysis of the properties of real space, see chapter 
XIII, pp. 234-243. 



398 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

As distance, space conditions the equations of the astronomer 
and the realization of our human social purposes. For even 
though our purposes do not occupy space, they nevertheless 
operate in space and space makes a difference to their realiza- 
tion. If from Kansas I wish to communicate with a friend 
across the sea, it makes a definite difference as regards the kind 
of communication and the sort of relations that are possible 
between us, that he is some thousands of miles away. 

Spatial distance does not of course prevent energetic over- 
lapping of centers. In the case of my friend it is true that my 
purpose to communicate may become continuous with cer- 
tain physiological processes, and these in turn may become 
continuous with certain physical energies which in turn span 
the distance between me and my friend. But the overlap- 
ping is different and the realization of the social purpose is 
different because of the distance. No mystical monism can 
remedy this difference. No mere intellectual change of point 
of view can alter the practical situation in which space figures 
as one condition. 

We must, of course, be careful not to confuse the real space 
condition with our psychological or logical perspectives with 
their ideal distinctness or externality of parts. Things cannot 
move in an ideal system. Serial space is a construction — an 
after-picture to symbohze the relations of things, whether phys- 
ical masses or geometrical figures or self-conscious individuals, 
in zero space. If space were merely an ideal system, distance 
and free mobility would both be figurative without any reaUty 
for the figure. If we admit a real zero space, we can easily 
account for phenomenal or serial space, but not vice versa. 

I grant cheerfully that all our quantitative measurements 
are relative. Our serial constructions, our geometrical as our 
chronological models, are our tools by means of which we 
strive to meet the actual nature of the world. But I do not 
see how any mere contradictions in our concepts can rid us 
of characters of reality which condition all our real purposes, 
whether as regards transformation or translation. We must 
penetrate beneath the apparent contradictions and revise our 
concepts in conformity with the reality which they mean to ex- 
press. Concepts must be our servants, not our masters. 



GENERAL SURVEY: THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES 399 

Consciousness 

It is convenient to treat consciousness, the condition of aware- 
ness or interest, as a unique attribute. It is absurd to sup- 
pose that our conative attitudes and organized meanings be- 
come atoms and molecules when we are not aware of them; 
they change, not in stuff but in value when they are illumined 
for an instant by interest. Consciousness is a new character 
added to our conative purposes under certain conditions of 
intensity and readjustment. The conative purposes themselves 
may remain as constant as individual existence. They may 
even become permanent parts of social history. 

Consciousness or awareness is a neutral light. It does not 
create distance nor does it create meaning. It may be an 
awareness of meaning or an awareness of sensation. In our 
developed experience it is both. To make such awareness 
possible, there must preexist, as conditions, on the one hand, 
the object-context of which we become aware, and on the other 
hand, the system of conative tendency which forms the sub- 
jective condition of awareness. But neither the object-con- 
text nor the system of tendency is, as such, awareness. When 
interest is lighted, under its pecuhar conditions, a new relation- 
ship to the organism originates which cannot be reduced into 
other existential relations such as temporal, spatial, causal, 
nor into logical or aesthetic relations, though these now come 
to have subjective value. 

Consciousness thus conditions the relation of being felt. 
It converts what otherwise would be a type of mere inter- 
action into contemplation. What is contemplated may be an 
external meaning — a proposition in EucHd. It may be an 
electrical shock. It may be a relation such as distance. What 
is thus contemplated need not be experience stuff. It in- 
cludes not merely experience transition, but space transition. 
It may be any kind of energy or relation. On the other hand, 
a meaning may be as objective or external to consciousness as 
space. We do not make Homer's meaning or the Sistine Ma- 
donna, when we become conscious of it, any more than we 
make the distance fr6m the earth to the moon when we take 
account of it. Consciousness in any case is a gift which for 



400 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

its condition presupposes on the one hand conative tendency, 
on the other hand the shock of a stimulus — a situation to be 
met whether intra- or extra-organic. A mere continuity or 
succession of objects is not a consciousness of continuity or 
succession. Awakened tendency, or interest, is also required. 
And then the content may come in temporally discrete pulses 
of experience. 

Thus in being conscious there are always end-terms; and 
one of the end-terms must be a conative system of tendencies. 
The terms need not be a logical subject and object. They 
may be bUnd instinct on the one hand, and any fascinating 
stimulus on the other. But one of the end-terms is always 
conative in character. Consciousness is always an aspect of 
the situation which we call interest. 

Consciousness has been confused, on the one hand, with 
its conditions, on the other with its species. It has, in the 
first case, been regarded by the materialist as a product or 
effect of chemico-biological causes. But the materiahst him- 
self has admitted that it is not comparable with what is or- 
dinarily meant by effect. It is rather an epiphenomenon — 
a miracle added to the process, without making any causal 
difference to it. On the other hand, we may with the episte- 
mological ideahst regard this awareness as everywhere and 
always present and indissociable from the contents of reahty. 
But here we are dealing with an assumption which seems to 
run counter to the facts as known in our finite experience. I 
prefer a third alternative, which indeed is imphed in the bank- 
ruptcy of the other two, in accounting for our experience. This 
is that consciousness is an attribute added to our energetic 
relation of conative tendency and stimulus under certain con- 
ditions — a unique gift of reahty in its larger sense to some of 
the interactions of our finite ego. Since obeying regular laws 
it is no miracle ; since an aspect of all our waking experience, 
it is no more mysterious than other unique types of reality 
such as space. Whether it is an abstract and ontologically 
separable attribute of the universe or is ever-present as an 
aspect of a comprehensive absolute experience does not matter 
for the problem in question. In either case, what is a gift to 
our finite experience preexists as a character of a larger reahty. 



GENERAL SURVEY: THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES 401 

This character of awareness spans the whole field of interest, 
from the immediate interest of instinctive attention, where we 
have the "mere awareness of," to that of the most elaborate 
apperception of "knowledge about." 

In the second place, consciousness has been confused with 
the species of its content. It has sometimes been treated 
as though it meant exclusively logical awareness, to the ruling 
out of non-logical types. Again it has been treated as though 
it signified simply motor awareness, as opposed to ideational. 
But the stating of such definitions is a sufficient refutation of 
them. The awareness itself is quite colorless. It is the psy- 
chological processes which color it ; and here there is no reason 
why one process should be given the preeminence over the rest. 

Form 

I anticipate the most difficulty from the fifth attribute of 
which I am going to speak, viz. form or direction. We have 
tried so far to state the universe in terms of four attributes, 
those of stuff or energy, time, space, and consciousness. But 
none of these attributes answers the question : Does the pro- 
cess have direction, or is there validity in the flux? This is not 
accounted for by stuff, for the stuff character does not contain 
its own ' ' measure. ' ' It is precisely because we recognize that the 
process is not what it ought to be, because our finite struc- 
tures seem relative, that the question of validity is raised. The 
question is not answerable in terms of time, for time merely 
means transformation. Whether transformation towards chaos 
or towards unity is not answered by time. It is not statable 
as space, for while space conditions the realization of meaning, 
it does not make it vahd. You cannot reduce the demand 
for form to mere mechanical sequence, whether psychical or 
physical, conscious or unconscious. There remains some- 
how within us the longing for order and unity, in spite of, 
yea, because of, the fragmentariness of our finite meaning. 
The merely relative fails to satisfy us. 

VaKd relations are a distinct type or genus from conscious- 
ness with the motley array of existences which it reveals. In 
the first place, our awareness may be bound up with error and 
illusion. That it is largely so in our experience is attested 



402 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

by the whole story of science. In the second place, vaHd re- 
lations may exist without our being conscious of them. We 
do not originate Euchdian geometry by becoming aware of its 
logical relations. While vahd relations presuppose mind and 
also awareness at some time, we do not have to be awake all 
the time to keep the argument vaUd. And the long buried 
past, when once brought to consciousness, sometimes is found 
to be more vahd than our present cogitations. 

VaUdity imphes a constitution, different from the sequential 
or causal, in the light of which we criticize that which happens 
and strive to estabhsh clearness and distinctness in the midst 
of the seemingly confused relations of experience. This ideal- 
ization of hfe, this attempt to estabhsh the ought in what is, 
must be taken as a unique type of evaluation. When we 
insist that there ought to be truth, beauty, and goodness, in 
spite of the relativity of history and our individual judgments, 
we have at least implied a limit, a direction of history which is 
not relative. Else all our judgments would be equally mean- 
ingless, and there could be no degrees of worth, as in the dark 
all cows are gray. 

The absolute ideahst insists that in the absolute experience 
we have such a standard. This absolute experience is even 
now shared by us. It is this that gives rise to our conscious- 
ness of fragmentariness, which accounts for our finite sense 
of failure, and of which we are even now conscious as the final 
truth, the purpose eternally fulfilled. But the irony of his- 
tory gives the he to any such assumption. The absolute it- 
self, as our concept, is subject to the transmutation of time. 
It is the expression of the finite now. Each stage of the process 
must create its own absolute, find its own satisfaction. The 
absolute, therefore, is for us at any rate merely a logical ideal. 
Epistemologically, it is relative. The concept of it, too, pre- 
supposes direction for such validity as it has. 

That the idea of direction is valuable as a regulative idea 
or limit cannot be doubted. But can we also attribute on to- 
logical reahty to the same? Or is it merely a hypothetical 
hmit, the index of our ideal strivings? It seems to me, if it is 
required to give meaning to our relative and fragmentary pur- 
poses, that it must be at least as real as those purposes them- 



GENERAL SURVEY: THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES 403 

selves. The straight Hne must be at least as real as the num- 
berless variations of curvature of which it is the limit. And it 
is worth more, for without it there could be no such thing as 
measure. And so with our more general ideal demands, as 
contrasted with the world of existential processes. 

To guarantee the validity of process or to furnish the basis 
for science, virtue, and beauty, the form must be selective, 
that is, must somehow condition the survival of structures. 
Only thus can it satisfy that demand for finality which the 
finite process at any one time fails to fulfill. This does not 
mean that every item is predetermined by a final cause or 
Idea. It need only mean that, in the changes and chances of 
the cosmic process, in the fluctuations and mutations of life, 
certain ideals of clearness and distinctness are enforced by 
the universe, however much beyond our comprehension such 
operation may be. This would accomplish in the large what 
our selective will as a fragment in the evolution of the universe 
strives to accomplish in the small. 

That formal selection may condition survival we know 
from experience. Evaluation in terms of ideals is an impor- 
tant condition in social survival. Human beings are socially 
approved, not so much for their size, weight or strength, as 
for their satisfying certain ethical, aesthetic, and intellectual 
standards. They may, for example, be selected for their 
beauty rather than their strength and thus continue the race. 
This holds to a certain extent in animal selection as well. And 
in the survival of plant life and even of certain conditions of 
inorganic nature — the configurations of hills and valleys within 
our human control — form often plays the most important 
part in our selection. If the universe is interpenetrated and 
controlled in the last analysis by a master mind — the ful- 
fillment of our ideal demands — formal value, rather than 
quantity of energy, may be the final basis of survival and 
eternity. 

These attributes, while they are ultimate or irreducible 
kinds, differ from the parallelistic attributes of Spinoza in 
that they all make a difference to our creative purposes, whether 
they make any differences to each other or not. Hence they 
do not involve an epistemological contradiction. They at 



404 A REALISTIC UNIVERSE 

least overlap as known. They also overlap in other ways. 
Space makes a definite difference to interacting energies in 
space. Time again conditions the existence of process at all. 
Without it we should have a petrified world. Consciousness 
makes subjective realization of a world possible, while form 
makes it possible to understand and appreciate such a world. 



INDEX 



Absolute, matter and the, 15 £f. 

Absolute idealism, hypothesis of, to 
account for experience, 20, 27-32. 

Abstraction, idealization as, 310. 

Abstractions, errors of, 64. 

Activity, accounting for, in analysis 
of mental processes, 185-188 ; con- 
cept of, under a timeless system, 
252 ; confusion of form with the 
concept of, 329. 

Esthetic ideals, attempts to differ- 
entiate between scientific and moral 
ideals and, 309-311. 

Affection, one dimension of the will, 
171. 

Affective qualities, character of the, 
and difficulty of distinguishing, 168- 
169. 

Alexander, S., definition of "mind," 
164; "On Sensations and Images" 
by, cited, 166 n. 

Analogy, theory of, regarding knowl- 
edge of other selves, 153. 

Anaxagoras, on potential properties, 
46; the Nous of, 115. 

Angell, " Psychology," cited, 120 n. 

Animals, consciousness in, 143-144. 

Aquinas, Thomas, on individuation, 62. 

Aristotle, on metaphysics as compared 
with other sciences, xv ; on the 
pragmatic significance of things, 70 ; 
concept of form of the body, men- 
tioned, 140; objections of, to 
atomists' conception of space, 245 ; 
character of time as laid down by, 
255; on the difficulty of making 
particular judgments in regard to 
the future, 297 ; confusion of form 
and activity by, 329 ; view of 
finalism regarding evolution ac- 
cording to, 362-365 ; forms, 377. 

Arrhenius, on infinity of world, 241. 

Art, metaphysics, and, xx-xxi. 

Atomic realism, the ideal of, 20-27. 

Attention, consciousness as an ingredi- 
ent of, 139 ; question of dependence 
upon distribution of consciousness, 



141-124; physical factors in, 170- 
171 ; one dimension of the will, 171 ; 
concept of, under a timeless system, 
252 ; attempt at differentiation of 
ideals based on relation to, 311-313 ; 
dependence of, upon unnoticed facts, 
391-392. 

Attributes, the five, 385 ; classical dis- 
cussion of, dating back to Spinoza, 
386 ; theory of Spinoza concerning, 
386-389 ; attitude of modern sci- 
ence toward, 389 ; three insisted upon 
by modern science, 389 ; the at- 
tribute of being, 391-394 ; non-being 
attributes, 393-394 ; time, 394-397 ; 
space, 397-398 ; consciousness, 399- 
401 ; form, 401-403 ; wherein these 
attributes differ from the parallelistic 
attributes of Spinoza, 403 ; over- 
lapping of, 403-404. See, for further 
discussion, the main divisions of the 
book. 

Augustine, on mental processes, 130; 
reference to, 339. 

Awareness, consciousness the precon- 
dition of, 135-136 ; metaphysical dif- 
ference, 136. See Consciousness. 



B 

Being, the divine truth of, 3-5; re- 
lation of matter and the absolute 
to, 15 ff. ; discussion of, as one of 
the attributes, 391-394. 

Bergson, quoted on reality of things, 67 ; 
position of, as to time, 259 ; theory 
concerning evolution, 365, 366; on 
matter, 380 ; law of matter, 83. 

Berkeley, formula of, 28 ; on the relative 
character of extension, 21; confusion 
of sensations and sense-qualities, 89 ; 
witness, 131. 

Biological terms, presuppositions of 
space construction expressed in, 21 Iff. 

Bode, B. H., theory concerning con- 
sciousness, 120 n. 

Bodily activity, relation of conscious- 
ness to, 140. 

Body, potentialities of, 129. 



405 



406 



INDEX 



Boodin, John E., "Truth and Reality" 
by, cited and quoted, 68, 94, 147, 
385; articles by, cited, 107, 191, 204, 
251, 277, 283, 324, 392, 395. 

Bradley, cited concerning the reality of 
relations, 93, 94 ; logical relations 
confused with energy relations by, 
107. 

Broad, C. D., a reply to a criticism 
by, 76 n. 

Brown, Thomas, quoted on difference 
between qualities, 84. 



Causality, concept of, 100-103 ; con- 
cept of an energy system substi- 
tuted for, 103-105 ; under a timeless 
system, 252. 

Cayley, reference to, 217. 

Chicago School, creative contribution 
of the cognitive relation emphasized 
by, 98 n. ; functional view of con- 
sciousness expressed by, 119-120; 
concerning consciousness, 120 n. 

Clifford, reference to, 237. 

Comenius, quoted as to beginnings of 
metaphysics, xiv. 

Companionship, thought and, 193-194. 

Conduct, Spinoza's attitude toward 
problem of, 388. 

Conductivity, a physical property of 
real space, 242. 

Consciousness, the divine truth of, 8- 
9; the concept of, 115 ff.; exam- 
ination of theories concerning, 115- 
129 ; and mind stuff, 129-133 ; ques- 
tion of what practical difference can 
be made to our world by, 134 ; the 
pragmatic difference of, 135-141 ; 
the distribution of, 141-145; other 
problems of, 145-150 ; question 
whether a mental fact, 164-166 ; 
as one of the five attributes, 385 ; 
an attribute that has been neglected 
by natural science, 390 ; discussed 
as an attribute, 399-401. 

Conservation of energy, law of, and its 
definite meaning in connection with 
special energy systems, 47. 

Conservation of mass, empirical char- 
acter of law of, 48. 

Constancy of the self and of feelings, 
175-180. 

Continuities between minds, mental 
distinguished from physical, 191 ff. ; 
two types, material and immaterial, 
199. 



Continuity, not accounted for by ex- 
perience, 16 ; as a characteristic of 
real space and of mathematical space, 
237-240; to l^e distinguished from 
the mathematical concept, 238. 

Cosmology, as one of the types into 
which problems of metaphysics are 
divided, xxi-xxii. 

Creighton, J. E., article on "The No- 
tion of the Implicit in Logic," cited, 
271 n. 

D 

Degradation of energy, law of, 48-49. 

Democritus, atomic theory of, 20. 

Descartes, on primary and secondary 
qualities, 85 ; criterion of truth, 320- 
321. 

Development, differentiation of ideals 
from point of view of, 313. 

Dewey, John, on the creative contri- 
bution of the cognitive relation, 98 
n. ; theory concerning consciousness, 
119-120. 

Differentiation of ideals, 309-316. 

Dimensionality, as a property of real 
space and of geometric space, 236. 

Direction, derivation of meaning of evo- 
lution from conception of, 350 ; recog- 
nition of, necessary to solution of 
the problem of the one and the 
many, 355 ; attribute of, gives mean- 
ing to conception of immortality as 
the persistence of individual unity, 
356. See also Form. 

Distance, as a characteristic of space, 
397-398. 

Distribution of consciousness, 141-145. 

Driesch, "Philosophy of the Organ- 
ism," quoted, 364-365. 

Dual nature of the self, 155-163. 

Dunlap, quoted on time and the spe- 
cious present, 257. 

Duration, psychological sense of, 256. 

Durkheim, social variables, 43. 

E 

Ebbinghaus, dual nature of the self, 
155-156 ; reference to, 179. 

Electrical energy system, postulates of 
an, 38-40. 

Electrical theory of matter, 22-23. 

Emerson, references to, 349, 384. 

Emotions, largely sensational, 167. 

Empirical laws of energy, 47-51. 

End terms in the interest relation, the 
prejudice against, 161-163. 



INDEX 



407 



Energy, as one door to reality, 3-4, 11 ; 
and things, 15 ff. ; discussion of na- 
ture of, 33-37 ; postulates of differ- 
ent types of systems of, 37-46 ; some 
empirical laws of, 47-51 ; relation of 
systems of, to one another, 51-61 ; 
theory of consciousness as a form of, 
115; necessity of adding conscious- 
ness when trying to define it in terms 
of, 118-119 ; consciousness and, 147- 
148 ; problem of immortality relates 
to, rather than to consciousness, 149 ; 
spatial distance implied by, 226-227 ; 
discussed as one of the five attributes, 
385 ; insisted upon as an attribute 
by modern science, 389. 

Energy system, concept of, substituted 
for concept of causality, 103-105. 

Energy systems, postulates of, 37-46; 
relation of, to one another, 51-61. 

Entelechies, office of, in accounting for 
prospective value of the parts of the 
protoplasm, 365. 

Ethical reahzation, form and, 344-350. 

Everett, C. C, on the problem of iden- 
tification of the ideals, 308-309. 

Evolution, and direction, 350-355 ; 
theories of, 360 ff . ; attitude of mech- 
anism, 360-362 ; viewpoint of final- 
ism, 362-365; theory of vitalism, 
365-368 ; a new teleology suggested, 
368-378 ; final theory must include 
both mechanism and finalism, 370 ; 
function of matter in process of, 379- 
381. 

Existence of space, proofs of, 226-234. 

Experience, metaphysics a final evalua- 
tion of, XV ; insufiiciency of, as an 
account of reality, 15-20; its own con- 
tinuity not accounted for by, 16 ; in- 
terest not accounted for by, 17 ; other 
ways of proving insufficiency of, 17- 
20 ; bearing of, on the future, 298- 
299 ; necessary to idealization, 309. 

Extension, place of, in scientific con- 
ception of physical nature, 21 ; as a 
property of things in a perceptual en- 
ergy system, 36 ; not an independent 
attribute, 387. 

Externality, law of, 210 ; as a property 
of real space and of geometric space, 
235 ; of energetic centers as a char- 
acteristic of space, 397-398. 



Fechner, on life, 42 ; on consciousness 
in plants, 144. 



Feelings, implied by consciousness, 142 ; 
largely physical in character, 167- 
168 ; constancy and change in, 175- 
178. 

Fichte, quoted concerning geometric 
space, 223 ; on form, 337. 

Finalism, view of, regarding evolution, 
362-365 ; mechanism and, included 
in final theory of evolution, 370. 

Fine, on continuity, 238. 

Form, the divine truth of, 9-11 ; and 
reality, 307 ff. ; and the Ought, 326 
ff. ; the nature of, 326-338 ; validity 
and, 338-344 ; and ethical reali- 
zation, 344-350 ; evolution and direc- 
tion, 350-355; question as to how 
forms preexist and what forms are 
presupposed, 377-378 ; the effective- 
ness of, 378 ; consideration of, as 
one of the five attributes, 385, 401- 
403. 

Freedom, accounting for, in analysis of 
mental processes, 185-188. 

Freudian school, balked disposition, 
187. 

Fusion, law of, 210. 

Future, knowledge of the, 296-303. 

G 

Geometric space, psychological space 
and, 207-224. 

Geometry, properties of real space dis- 
tinguished from those of, 235-243 ; 
viewed as the idealizing process in 
the abstract, 375. 

God, the philosopher's conception of, 
325 ; matter and, 378-384. 

Gotch, on relation of nervous and elec- 
trical types of energy, 55. 

Greek view of identity of the ideals, 
308. 

Green, reality denied to things as con- 
trasted with values by, 1 10. 

H 

Harmony in ideals, 317-318. 

Hegel, logic of, xvi ; values of things, 

110; mentioned, 120; on history, 281, 

337; spatializing of spirit, 380. 
Henderson, cited, 56, 381. 
Heraclitus, adaptation from, 53 ; on 

form, 332, 333 ; quoted, 349, 351, 359. 
Hildebrand, on art, 320. 
History, justification and practical aim 

of, 294-295. 
Holt, cited, 96 n. ; quoted, 161, 162, 



408 



INDEX 



Homogeneity, as a characteristic of real 

space and of geometric space, 236- 

237. 
Homoloidal character of real space, 

237. 
Hume, David, on causality, 102-103 ; 

"Treatise on Human Nature," cited, 

159. 



Idealism, loss of significance to space 
when translated into terms of abso- 
lute, 223-224; attempt of, to rule 
out existence of space, 247 ; teleo- 
logical, 360 ff. 

Idealistic systems of philosophy, ad- 
vantages of, xix-xxi. 

Ideality of space, 208. 

Ideals, identity of the, 307 ff. ; efforts 
toward unification of, 307-309 ; ef- 
forts at differentiation of, 309-316 ; 
unity, harmony, simplicity, and uni- 
versality the four essentials of, 316- 
321 ; the content of, 321-325. 

Identity, of the self, 175-180; con- 
sciousness of, in the group mind, 202- 
203 ; of the ideals, 307-325. 

Images, social aspects of, 146-147. 

Immortality, question of consciousness 
and, 149 ; effect of the craving for, 
on the will, 190 ; of social minds, 
204 ; meaning given to conception 
of, by assuming attribute of direc- 
tion, 356. 

Impenetrability, as a property of Par- 
menides' world, 244. 

Individual and social minds, 191-204. 

Individuation of things, 69-73. 

Inertia, a universal characteristic of 
energy, 35. 

Infinity, as a characteristic of real space 
and of geometric space, 240-241. 

Instinctive tendencies, difference made 
to, by consciousness, 138. 

Interaction theory of consciousness, 
128-129. 

Interest, insufficiency of experience to 
account for, 17 ; contrasted with 
consciousness, 137 ; consciousness an 
aspect of the situation called, 400. 

Interest relations, 105-106. 

Interpenetration, a fundamental law 
of the thing, 83-84. 

Intuition, mode of, applied to estimate 
of qualities, 84 ; dependence of ge- 
ometry upon, for its starting point, 
215-217. 



James, William, on self-sufficiency of 
experience as an account of reality, 
15; essays by, cited, 96 n. ; view of 
mental processes expressed by, 130; 
account of Fechner by, quoted, 144 ; 
quoted in connection with the dual 
nature of the self, 156; on the sub- 
ject-object relation, 160, 161 ; on the 
basis of the consciousness of mental 
activity, 170-171 ; cited, 187. 

Judging process, time and the, 273-282. 



Kant, Immanuel, rise of hypothesis of 
absolute idealism from doctrine of, 
27-28; space concept of, 208 ff. ; 
on the existence of empty space, 228 ; 
arguments of, against space concept, 
245-247; on the character of time, 
265; categorical imperative, 335,336. 

Kapp, Gisbert, "Electricity," cited, 22. 

Knowing minds, methods to be pur- 
sued, 151-153 ; the theory of analogy, 
153; the mystical theory, 153-155; 
the traditional psychological theory 
of the dual nature of the self, 155- 
163 ; what is meant by mind, 164 
ff. ; question whether consciousness 
is mental, 164-166 ; physical char- 
acter of sense data, sensory elements, 
mental operations, and feelings, 166- 
168 ; difficulty of distinguishing the 
affective qualities, 168-169; physical 
nature of thought in its content as- 
pect, 169-170 ; physical factors in 
attention, 170-171 ; character of 
mind disclosed by mental acts as 
will, 171-172; the will the mental 
part of the mind, 173-174; the 
identity of the self, 175-180 ; unity 
of the self, 180-184 ; place of activity 
and freedom, 185-188; value and 
worth of conduct as explained by dy- 
namic theory of the self, 188-190. 

Knowledge, consciousness and, 147 ; re- 
lation of time to, 268. 



Ladd and Woodworth, "Elements of 

Physiological Psychology," quoted, 

212. 
Language, substitution of, for concrete 

situations for knowing minds, 164- 

156. 



INDEX 



409 



Larmor, Sir Joseph, quoted on ener- 
getic system, 42. 

Leibniz, relational aspect of space em- 
phasized by, 207 ; confusion of form 
with activity by, 330. 

Life, postulates of such an energy sys- 
tem as, 40-^2. 

Locke, on primary qualities, 85-87. 

Logic, implied by metaphysics, xv ; 
geometrical construction a matter 
of, 220-221. 

Logical relations, 100 ; logical systems, 
106, 107. 

Lotze, conception of the universe as a 
polyphonic unity by, 63 ; on the 
kinship of the ideals, 308. 

Lovejoy, A. O., articles on "The 
Problem of Time in Present French 
Philosophy" by, 259 n. 



M 

MacDougall, Robert, quoted on the 
psychological present, 256. 

McGilvary, E. B., cited, 119; view of 
consciousness as "a unique together- 
ness," 121 n. 

Maps, space, 211. 

Marshall, use of term " subattentive " 
advocated by, 392. 

Material and immaterial continuities, 
199. 

Mathematics, space considered from 
aspect of, 207, 215-224. 

Matter and God, 378-384. 

Maxwell, Clerk, the "sorting omnis- 
cience" of, 49, 367, 381, 383 ; quoted 
on homogeneity of geometric space 
and real space, 237. 

Mead, G. H., "Definition of the Psy- 
chical," cited, 120 n. 

Meaning, relation of consciousness to, 
121-123. 

Mechanical energy system, postulates 
of a, 37-38. 

Mechanism, hypothesis of, regarding 
evolution, 360-362 ; limitations of, 
369-370 ; both finalism and, included 
in final theory of evolution, 370. 

Mendel's law, persistence of qualities 
shown by, 81-82 ; of types, 374. 

Mental act, consciousness as a, 164-166. 

Mental activities, relation between 
physical energy and, 393. 

Mental and physical continuities of 
minds, 191-192. 

Mental processes, viewed as quanti- 
tatively comparable, 116; two con- 



ceptions of existence of, when we are 
not conscious of them, 130 ; partly 
physical character of, 167. 

Metaphysics, meaning of, xiii ff. ; place 
of, xiii-xv; permanent claim of, on 
human nature, xv ; presuppositions 
of, xv-x\di ; function of, xvii-xx ; 
relation between art and, xx-xxi ; 
is science, not art, xxi ; problems of, 
customarily divided into ontology 
and cosmology, xxi-xxii ; division of 
problems of, upon concepts of en- 
ergy, consciousness, space, time, and 
form, xxii. 

Mill, J. S., quoted on constancy in a 
series of feelings, 177 ; question of, 
as to how past and future can co- 
exist in the present, 255. 

Mind, the reality of, 4 ; consciousness 
and, 115 ff. 

Minds, knowing, 151-163 ; individual 
and social, 191-204. 

Mind stuff, consciousness and, 129- 
133. 

Minot, C. S., quoted concerning con- 
sciousness, 115; cited, 127. 

Mobility, free, as a characteristic of 
space, 397. 

Montague, W. P., quoted on conscious- 
ness, 122 n. 

Moore, A. W., "Pragmatism and its 
Critics," cited, 120 n. 

Moore, G. E., on consciousness as a 
mental fact, 164-165. 

More, L. T., quoted concerning space, 
227. 

Motion, usefulness of conception of 
pure space in explaining, 229-232 ; 
concept of, under a timeless system, 
251-252; accepted as a universal 
property of matter, 254-255. 

Motor sensations, identification of 
consciousness with, 119-120. 

Miinsterberg, Hugo, cited concerning 
contrast between mental and physi- 
cal facts, 192. 

Mystical theory of knowledge of other 
minds, 153-154. 



N 



Natural science, the three attributes 
required for, 389. 

Nature, insufficiency of experience to 
account for, 18-19. 

Neutralism, theory of, regarding re- 
lations and things, 95-99. 



410 



mDEX 



Newcomb, Simon, article on "Matter," 
quoted, 27 ; article "Space," quoted, 
236-237. 

New realism, movement called, 96. 

Newton, Isaac, controversy with Leib- 
niz over space concept, 207 ; influ- 
ence of theories of, on the space con- 
cept, 229, 245. 



Objections to real space, 243-247. 

Objective distance, possibility of, re- 
sulting from conception of pure space, 
230-232. 

Obscurantism, metaphysics confused 
with, xiii. 

Occultism, metaphysics and, xiii. 

One and the many, problem of the, 355- 
356. 

Ontology, as one of the types into 
which problems of metaphysics are 
divided, xxi-xxii. 

Organic energy system, postulates of 
an, 40-42. 

Ostwald, "Principles of Inorganic 
Chemistry," quoted, 81 ; conscious- 
ness treated as a form of energy by, 
115-116. 

Ought, form and the, 236 ff. ; defined 
as the consciousness of the form- 
character of the universe, 356 ; ob- 
jectivity of the, 357 ; the only way 
of serving the, 359. 



Palmer, reference to, 312. 

Parmenides, objections of, to real space 
concept, 226, 243-244. 

Past, regarded as a fourth dimension 
of time, 286-288 ; knowledge of the 
present and the, contrasted, 289-296. 

Past and future, concept of, under a 
timeless system, 252, 

Pearson, Karl, attempt of, to reduce 
mass to acceleration, 390. 

Peirce, C. S., view of matter by, 372. 

Perception, consciousness and, 147. 

Perry, R. B., "Present Philosophical 
Tendencies," cited, 96 n. ; "Con- 
ceptions and Misconceptions of 
Consciousness," cited, 121. 

Philosophy, what constitutes, xiii ; new 
opportunity of, under present-day 
conditions, xv. 

Physical energy, relation between men- 
tal activities and, 393. 



Physical properties of real space, 242. 

Physiology and psychology, 211-213. 

Pillsbury, "Essentials of Psychology," 
quoted, 212. 

Pitkin, W. B., summary of Sumner's 
researches, 213. 

Plant life, evidences of consciousness 
in, 144. 

Plato, quoted on the contrast between 
the present and the past, 289 ; identi- 
fication of the ideals by, 308 ; form 
confused with concept of activity 
by, 329 ; quoted concerning the 
materialistic view of reality, 339 ; 
view of finalism regarding evolution 
according to, 362-363; forms, 377. 

Poincar6, H., "The Value of Science," 
quoted, xx, 23 ; cited and quoted 
in connection with geometric space, 
215 ff. ; "Science and Hypothesis," 
quoted, 234, 235 ; quoted on the 
metaphysical continuum, 238-239. 

Postulates of energy systems, 37-46. 

Pragmatic character of time, 264-273. 

Pragmatic difference of consciousness, 
135-141. 

Pragmatic view of things, 68, 69-73. 

Present, time and the concept of the 
psychological or "specious," 255- 
260 ; and past contrasted, 289-296. 

Presuppositions of metaphysics, xv- 
xvii. 

Properties of space, 234-243. 

Psychological space, 207, 208-215. 



Qualities, knowing things by their, 74 
ff. ; viewed as energies that can be 
tapped under definite conditions, 75 ; 
the potential as well as the actual 
energies of things, 75 ; things possess 
different, in different contexts, 76 ; 
identification of a thing with its, 76- 
77 ; what must be included in a 
thing's, 77 ; not created by human 
nature, 77-78 ; reality and persist- 
ence of, 80-82 ; problem of relative 
importance of, 84-89 ; importance 
of, decided by the purpose in ques- 
tion, 89 ; avoidance of confusion of 
sensations and sense qualities, 89- 
91; of values, 108-112. 

Quantity, mental processes measurable 
as to, 116-117; space and time as 
pure, 389-390 ; attempt to reduce 
mass and energy to pure, 390. 



INDEX 



411 



Rankine, summary of views of, on 
enevgy, 36-37. 

Reality, doors to, found in being or 
energies, time, space, consciousness, 
and form, 3-11 ; insufl&ciency of ex- 
perience as an account of, 15-20 ; 
application of hypotheses of sub- 
stances and of the absolute, 20 ff. ; 
an energy system the simplest unit 
of, 35-36 ; as a property of energy 
systems, 52 ff. ; of things, 62-73; 
question of kind to be assigned to 
consciousness, 115 ; in what way en- 
riched by consciousness, 135-141 ; 
time and, 251 ff. ; form and, 307 ff. 

Real space, nature of, 225-247. 

Reid, Thomas, quoted on primary and 
secondary qualities, 84. 

Relational theory of space, 207 ff. 

Relations, things and, 92 ff. ; space, 
time, causal, and logical relations, 
100 ; of interest, 105-106. 

Relativity, a fundamental characteris- 
tic of energy systems, 35-36, 50-51. 

Religion, requirements of, 357. 

Rhythm, a characteristic of energy, 
49-50. 

Richards, T. W., on the compressi- 
bility of atoms, 229. 

Royce, Josiah, " The Problem of Chris- 
tianity," cited, 28 ; solution of prob- 
lem of relations offered by, 94 ; 
quoted concerning time, 272. 

Runeberg, Swedish poet, on relation 
between art and nature, 112. 

Russell, Bertrand, works by, cited and 
quoted, 96 n., 170, 228, 246. 

S 

Santayana, George, on consciousness 
and process, 140 n. ; "Winds of 
Doctrine," quoted, 327-328. 

Schiller, F. C. S,, emphasis placed on 
creative contribution of the cogni- 
tive relation by, 98 n. 

Schiller, poet, reference to, 308. 

Schopenhauer, on will, 172. 

Science, and the attributes, 389-390. 

Self-realization, fallacy of doctrine of, 
346-348. 

Sensations, distinction between sense 
qualities and, 89-91. 

Sensory elements, physical nature of, 
166-167. 

Series aspect of space, is ideal construc- 
tion, 215-216, 



Shaftesbury, on the kinship of the 
ideals, 308. 

Sheldon, W. H., articles on "A Theory 
of Causation" by, cited, 103. 

Simplicity demanded by ideal activity, 
318-319. 

Social experience as a test of objectivity 
of things, 72. 

Social interactions, postulates of, as a 
type of energy system, 42-44. 

Social minds, individual and, 191-204. 

Socrates, references to, 333, 349. 

Soddy, quoted, 242. 

Space, the divine truth of, 6-7 ; psy- 
chological, 208-215 ; geometric, 215- 
224 ; nature of real space, 225 ff. ; 
proofs of existence of, 226-234 ; prop- 
erties of, 234-243 ; objections to 
real, 243-247 ; discussed as one of the 
five attributes, 385, 397-398; in- 
sisted upon as an attribute by mod- 
ern science, 389. 

Space relations, 100. 

Space zero, conception of a, 226, 397. 

Specious present, time and the, 255-260. 

Spencer, Herbert, antinomy of extension 
and force, 21; adjustment, 41, 348. 

Spinoza, vision of universe held by, 4 ; 
confusion of form with activity by, 
330 ; conception of the attributes 
of, 386-389. 

Stout, G. F., definition of "mental" 
and "mind," 164; cited, 166. 

Strutt, R. J., exposition of electrical 
theory of matter by, 23 n. 

Stumpf, reference to, 166. 

Stuff, as one of the five attributes, 
385. See Energy. 

Subattentive, suggested use of, 392. 

Subconsciousness, accounting for men- 
tal processes by, 187. 

Subjective idealism, theory of, re- 
garding mental processes, 130-132. 

Subjectivity of consciousness, 146-147. 

Subject-object relation, 155-163. 

Substance, the conception of, 385. 

Substances, hypothesis of, 20-27. 

Succession, limitation of consciousness 
of, 260. 

Sumner, Francis B., researches by, 213. 

Systems, see energetic, logical, geo- 
metric. 



Teleological idealism, 360 ff. 
Teleology, a new, suggested, 368-378. 
Temporal and the eternal, 261-264. 



412 



INDEX 



Things, question of existence of, 62 ff. ; 
causes of the present-day antipathy 
to, 62-69 ; pragmatic significance of, 
69-73 ; pragmatic view of, 74 ; find- 
ing reality of, by their qualities, 74- 
83 ; interpenetration a fundamental 
law of, 83-84 ; problem of relations 
and, 92-107; and values, 107-112; 
survival of, may be conditioned by 
values. 111. 

Thomson, J. J., "Electricity and Mat- 
ter," quoted, 22. 

Thought, physical aspect of, 169-170 ; 
effect on friendship, 193-194 ; light 
thrown on nature of, by geometry, 
219-220. 

Time, the divine truth of, 5-6 ; the 
nature of, 251 £f. ; concepts of 
motion, causality, attention, ac- 
tivity, etc., under a timeless system, 
251-252 ; absence of meaning and 
judgments under timeless system, 
253 ; and the psychological present, 
255-260 ; the temporal and the 
eternal, 261-264 ; pragmatic char- 
acter of, 264-273 ; and the judging 
process, 273-282 ; to be regarded 
as non-serial, 283 ; and the problem- 
atic, 283 ff. ; as a new dimension, 
286-288; knowledge of the future, 
296-303; as one of the five attri- 
butes, 385 ; insisted upon as an at- 
tribute by modern science, 389 ; 
discussed as an attribute, 394-397. 

Time relations, 100. 

Titchener, E. B., "A Textbook of 
Psychology," cited, 139. 

Transformation of values effected by 
time, 394-397. 



U 



Unification of ideals, 307-309. 

Unit characters in Mendel's law, 81-82. 

Unity, of the self, 180-184; type of, 
which dominates social minds, 203 ; 
in ideals, 316-317. 

Universality, the law of, an abstrac- 
tion, 267 ; demanded by ideal ac- 
tivity, 319-320. 



Universe, not dependent upon con- 
sciousness, 148. 



Validity and form, 338-344, 401-403. 

Value, of conduct as explained by dy- 
namic theory of the self, 188-190 ; at- 
tempt to identify the types of, 309. 

Values, things and, 107-1 i2 ; how sur- 
vival of things may depend upon, 
111; relation of consciousness to, 
136-139 ; consciousness cannot de- 
cide between, 140-141. 

Vitalism, view of, regarding evolution, 
365-368. 

W 

Walter, H. E., "Genetics," quoted, 81. 

Whitehead, quoted on fundamental 
concepts in mathematics, 207, 215, 
221-222. 

Wikner, Pontus, monograph by, cited, 
74. 

Will, viewed as measurable as to quan- 
tity, 117; character of mind dis- 
closed by mental acts as, 171 ; de- 
pendence of, upon physical instru- 
ments, 172 ; the modes of the, 173 ; 
is the mental part of what is called 
"mind," 173-174. 

Wilson, E. B., cited, 83. 

Woodbridge, F. J. E., quoted concern- 
ing consciousness, 121. 

Work as a measure of energy, 34. 

Worth, of conduct, explained by dy- 
namic theory of self, 188 ; of social 
minds, 203. 

Wundt, quoted on dual nature of the 
self, 155. 



Zeller, "Aristotle," quoted, 363. 
Zeno, conception of space by, as "no 

thing," 225; objections of, against 

Pythagorean conception of space, 

244. 
Zero, property of absolute, a property 

of cosmic space, 242-243. 
Zero space, as a limit in conceiving 

Newton's first law of motion, 229. 



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